


; 



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COSMONICS 



OP THE 



UNITED STATES 



A PHYSICAL PROPHECY OF NORTH AMERICA 

AND A FORECAST OF UR CO UNTR F, 

FO UNDED IN CREA TIVE LA W. 



ILLUSTRATED WITH ORIGINAL CHARTS. 

BY ^ 

OLIVER M.' BABCOCK. 



To imitate Nature is the greatest mission of Art — 

To interpret Nature is the highest function of Knowledge 



PHILADELPHIA 
Kftt 






Copyrighted, 1889, by O. M. Babcock. 



All Rights Reserved. 



Contents. 



PAGE. 

COSMONICS DEFINED, vii to xvi 

THE CHAETS— Explanations, with Difficulties 

of Accurate Representations by Maps, . . iii to v 

Chart A. — Continent. Distances, Directions, 

Centers, etc., 53 

Chart B. — The Five Sections. Triple State 
Nucleus, Commercial Cross, Central Cities, 
Great Middle Belt of States, etc., .... 59 

Chart C. — Moving Center of Population, 
Gateway of the Continent, and Prism; 
Courses of Trade Indicated by Direction 
of Harbors and Rivers, Miss. Crossings, 88 

Chart of the World. — Course of Empire 
and Path of Power Around the World — 
Across America in Transverse Directions, 
Showing Position of Commercial Cross, 102 

LECTURE I.— Theory and General Princi- 
ples, 1 to 37 

LECTURE II. — Sections, Location, Extent, 

Climates, and Other Characteristics, 38 to 80 

LECTURE III.— General and Particular Facts; 
Important Features Contrasted and Com- 
pared ; Explanation of Symbol ; Forecast, . . 80 to 128 



THIS ¥OEK 

IS FRATERNALLY INSCRIBED TO 

Young patriots 

Who are soon to assume the reponsibilities of social order and civil 
government, and who discriminate between liberty and license. 

Who esteem rights as the measure of responsibilities, and duties as 
coextensive with privileges. 

Who hold that any one has no right to do wrong; that everything 
bad is wrong — be it act, omission, or indulgence ; that whatever 
is a moral wrong should not be a legal right ; that personal 
freedom is bounded by the welfare of communities, and is pos- 
sible only under mutual restraints, and that this principle 
applies to the freedom and independence of states. 

Who perceive that the habits of individuals form the customs of 
society, and thereby become the foundation of laws which 
determine the rights, measure the responsibilities, and prescribe 
toe privileges of the people; and, therefore, that the liberty of 
persons, the stability of our institutions, and the perpetuity of 
popular empire, depend on pure habits and proper customs, 
from which come exemplary laws. 

Who regard intelligence, integrity, and industry as the tripod of a 
safe democracy. 

Who trust in Providence, are true to themselves, and therefore cannot 
be false to others. 

Who favor state unity, national sovereignty, and territorial extension 
until the continent is embraced, as essential to our complete 
independence; and 

Who, believing in the survival of the fittest, ever hope in the future 

of 
THE NORTH AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 



THE CHARTS. 



A ball cover or an orange peel is a good representation of 
the crust of our globe. If we cut either of them so as to 
spread it or a portion of it on a flat surface, we shall realize 
the difficulty of making a map to represent the area of our 
planet or of a continent. 

An orange is, perhaps, the best representation, in shape, 
of any product of its parent, — the earth. Let the two ends 
of the orange represent the North and South poles. Cut 
the peel from end to end into many strips. If there be 360 
of these cuts they will represent the number of meridian 
lines used in geographical measurement, and every strip 
will represent a degree of longitude. The strips will all 
be pointed at the ends. If they be laid side by side, in a 
straight line on a flat surface, the ends will be spread apart 
while their middles touch together. If a figure or a map 
had been drawn on the peel before cutting, it would be 
separated into many parts, and so broken up as to scarcely 
be recognized. Had the peel been elastic, and cut into only 
two equal parts, the ends would stretch instead of separating 
when flattened, and the figure would remain intact, but be 
very much distorted and spread out of proportion. 

Cut an orange peel around midway between the ends, and 
the northern and southern hemispheres will be represented 
by the two halves, while the cut will represent the equator. 
Now make other cuts around, parallel to this equator, and 
the strips will represent belts of latitude, while the cuts will 
represent lines called parallels on the map. Between the 
center line or equator, and the ends or poles, there should 
be 180 cuts or lines — 90 on each half — to represent all the 
parallels or degrees used in this kind of geographical mea- 
surement. A very few of these cuts and strips, even three 
or four on one side, are enough to illustrate the idea we wish 
here to convey. 

iii 



IV THE CHARTS. 

If the rind be now cut crosswise of these belts through 
the poles or ends of the orange, into two equal parts, and 
each half pressed out flat, the strips will be curved into 
shape resembling lines and belts, called parallels and degrees 
of latitude on the maps of our school geographies. Both 
meridians and parallels must be curved in order to show the 
Globe or any considerable portion of it approximately cor- 
rect, and the meridians and parallels must always be curved 
in proportion to each other. 

A map with meridians and parallels drawn at right angles 
—in straight lines— represents portions of the earth towards 
the poles considerably larger than they really are, like the 
supposed elastic orange peel expanded or spread at the ends 
and also straightened out lengthwise, giving latitudes the 
appearance of greater width in the same portions with meri- 
dians. This accounts for the disproportion of continents, &c, 
represented on our Civil Chart showing the course of empire 
or path of power around the world. The straight lines are 
necessary to easily explain and give a correct idea of direc- 
tions and comparative as well as relative distances, and 
allowance must be made for the disproportional breadth 
towards the poles. Other apparent discrepancies are apt to 
be noticed by captious critics ; especially if their interests 
lie in the direction of disadvantage according to the theory 
outlined in this book. It should be remembered, therefore, 
at the outset, that perfection is not claimed nor calculations 
in detail entered into by the author, for the very good reason 
that explanations which could be made would weary the 
average reader, — a disadvantage which is believed to out- 
weigh that of neglecting to particularize, and which is out- 
weighed by the importance of condensing many ideas into 
a small compass, allowing ample room for additional thought 
and discussion. 

Art cannot accurately portray Nature, either by repre- 
sentation or description. Perfection is only approximated, 
— never reached by any human effort. Approximation, 



THE CHARTS. V 

even, is not effected in minuteness or in detail, but only in 
a general view. Art being imperfect and finite, cannot 
comprehend Nature which is perfect and infinite. Every 
principle of Nature is infinite. . The more a curve is enlarged 
the nearer it approaches a straight line ; yet, a curve can- 
not be made straight by infinite enlargement. The ratio 
between a circumference and its diameter cannot be exactly 
calculated. That the earth revolves once in 365 days is not 
strictly true. The relative distance between meridians on 
our sphere is a constant deviation from the equator to the 
poles, and a general rule for estimating distances obliquely 
across or between them and the parallels cannot be given. 

The variations of nature do not alter the accuracies of 
art, nor conform to them, and a partial fact may seem to 
invalidate a general statement. The average direction of 
the sun's rays to the earth in any latitude, may be contra- 
dicted by the exact angle at which it meets the surface at a 
particular point or a certain time in that latitude. Much 
depends on the surface formation, time of day, and season 
of the year ; yet a true theory is founded on the general facts. 
Asia-Minor belongs with Europe in our calculations. 

Calcutta, the central city of India, being on or near the 
central meridian — 90 — of the great continent — including 
Europe and Asia — is favorably situated to serve as an im- 
portant way-mark in all directions. The 20th parallel is 
below Calcutta but above Bombay, and properly becomes 
the average-limit-line of descent southward. Parallel 40, 
relatively, though not really, is farther north in Asia than 
in Europe and America. A large right curve from the long 
descent southward, to touch Pekin on parallel 40, has its 
proportional counterpart in the smaller one from the short 
descent southward, to touch Boston and New York, above 
parallel 40. Many other instances might be noticed. 

Average comparisons, approximate measurements, and 
general ideas only, must answer for explanations and illus- 
trations of our plan as exhibited on the following pages. 



EXOEDIAL MOTTOES. 



Blessed are those to whom destinies equal attractions. — Fourier. 

Could I have been told when young, what I have since written on 
the subject of mezzotinto engraving, it would have saved me years 
of toil. — John Sartain. 

Antiquity deserveth that reverence that men should make a stand 
thereupon, and discover what is the best way; but when the discovery 
is well taken, then to make progression. — Lord Bacon. 

From the past and the present a glorious future must succeed. "We 
may most reasonably hope that the age now transpiring, the age we 
have seen born, and which will see us buried, will transmit to our 
children and their remotest posterity, increasing virtues, and perpetu- 
ally lessened wrongs. — Elias Lyman Hagoon. 

The greatest excellence is often elaborated amid the severest trials, 
and the calamities we would gladly avert, have most of all contributed 
to progress, intellectual arid moral. — E. L. M. 

Are not all laws, discrepant from God's laws, evil ? — Bishop Hall. 

Plans in Nature show the purposes of God. — The Author. 

" Know then thyself, presume not God to scan ! 
The proper study of mankind is man " 
And his own earth. ,.Tne stars thou canst not reach, 
And more than thou canst learn, this world will teach. 



VI 



COSMONICS. 

INCEPTION AND EVOLUTION. 



Advents and events, incidents and accidents, occurrences, 
and undertakings, are introductory impulses in the march 
of progress and the advance of civilization. 

Accident or incident has given birth to every law and 
prompted or promoted every amendment thereof. Customs 
and systems are the outgrowths of unexpected occurrences. 
Discoveries and inventions, enterprises and revolutions, are 
the results of unlooked-for happenings. The supposed 
achievements of men and the distinctions which they acquire 
come of unanticipated opportunities. 

A book, a story, or a poem, is founded in or suggested by 
a catastrophe or a triumph, which was brought about by 
chance. Men are credited with marvellous foresight, extra- 
ordinary talents, or exceptional shrewdness, for acts the most 
unpremeditated, and to which they were driven by emer- 
gency. An unexpected turn in the price of stocks may raise 
an unwitting speculator to a reputable financier and popular 
adviser in matters of business. 

The tide of a war may turn on the bravery of a private 
soldier who dies in the heroic act and is never known 
or lives in obscurity, while at his expense a country is saved, 
a nation becomes great, and the general of the army is 
crowned with unmerited honors. 

The city of Chicago escaped conflagration and plunder at 
the hands of Confederates in the beginning of November, 
1864, by the tact and persistence of a government employee 
who still remains publicly unknown in the connection, while 
the Provost Marshal received credit for great efficiency. 
Honors rightly bestowed would revolutionize office-holding, 
shift its emoluments, and alter the list of heroes. 

vii 



Vlll INCEPTION. 

Napoleon III. precipitated a war between France and 
Germany and was driven into exile, his nation disgraced and 
Paris beleaguered, but out of the ruin arose the French 
Kepublic. The uninvited opportunity made the King of 
Prussia Emperor of Germany. Thus the benefaction of a 
republic exists on the ruins of an empire, the downfall of 
which raised a few isolated states to a united nationality and 
dominating power. 

Those who sought to establish slavery as a permanent 
institution on this continent, were made instruments of its 
overthrow and of opportunities which brought obscure men 
into prominence. 

The greatest conflagration of history, made the rivals of 
Chicago to exult over her supposed ruin. But her suffering 
citizens were quickly replaced or joined by others who, but 
for this calamity, might never have succeeded as financiers. 

The question of her survival and the desperate energy of 
her people brought her position and possibilities to the front, 
established her greatness as never before, and resulted in 
accelerating her already marvellous growth. 

Circumstances connected with the great disaster have 
brought about the composition of these pages. The great 
fire occurred in October, 1871. The author suffered by its 
ravages, being a resident of Chicago at the time. During 
the immediate winter he delivered a few lectures in Illinois, 
and being credited with many ideas entirely new on the 
subject of American development and progress, was officially 
called by one city to write a pamphlet on the " Present and 
Future " of that place and its vicinity. The call was promptly 
accepted, and while the pamphlet was being prepared, many 
thoughts came into the author's mind, exciting his admira- 
tion at what seemed a great plan, divine in purpose and 
prophetic of destiny. Pursuit of the subject became a 
fascinating study and led finally to a resolution that a more 
extensive work should be produced, comprehending the 
whole country, and showing its relations to the world. 



EVOLUTION. IX 

As general truths and their verifying facts, each called by 
another and suggesting its successor, came in their order and 
fitted into place like parts of a great masterpiece worthy of 
a world-maker and designer of nations, every idea added 
brightness to the picture until the continent appeared illu- 
minated as the stage of the fifth and final act in the great 
drama of human progress — the grandest camp in civiliza- 
tion's march, and ultimate goal in the " course of empire." 

These pages are but an outline of the ideas passing in 
review and claiming recognition as factors in the fulfillment 
of a great purpose. Elaborated, the theme would fill a 
volume of proportions discouraging to business readers 
whose interest is largely considered in these lectures. Con- 
densation has been the most laborious part of the work. 

It was conceived in 1872 and practically begun in 1874-5 
to be used on the occasion of the Centennial in 1876. Finan- 
cial reverses caused a detention which could not be overcome 
during the prevalence of that memorable panic which began 
in 1873, adding to losses already suffered by the great Chicago 
fire. So the manuscript has remained until 1889 when, with 
a few additions, it comes forth under the inspiration of 
another Centennial, — auspiciously of the inauguration of our 
first President — George Washington. 

Whatever the essay lacks in embellishment or scholarship, 
it is entitled to the merit of originality. The facts and 
theories here expressed have never been otherwise or else- 
where put forth to the writer's knowledge, and as admiration 
for his views, coupled with admissions of their novelty, have 
been unanimous among teachers and leading business men 
wherever he has lectured on the subject, he is encouraged in 
the belief that he will remain free from the accusation of 
plagiarism. He also has avoided the weakness of tau- 
tology to the fullest extent practicable in treating of so 
comprehensive and varied a subject, in many departments 
of which the same ideas are involved and .similar words are 
required to express them. In treating separately of sections, 



X INDEPENDENCE. 

states, and cities, it is difficult to avoid like or similar expres- 
sions, where qualities and conditions are the same in relation 
to soil, climate, and commercial facilities. 

The few quotations admitted are mostly of sentiments 
expressed, rather than facts obtained, and are adduced as 
the exalted views of eminent minds, in order to modulate 
the reader's adverse opinion of the author's enthusiasm over 
our country's prospective career, and the brilliant outlook 
for all interests, and for coming generations. By these 
quotations the author hopes to escape some accusations of 
giving forth views extravagant or overwrought. He also 
claims the merit of absolute independence with freedom from 
the bias of personal interest, and from influence by sections, 
states, cities, or transportation lines. He has never received 
or sought reward or favor of any kind from any source 
except the source of all truth and light, lest a deviation in 
the slightest degree from facts, truths, or earnest convictions, 
might be permitted or attempted. 

The author, therefore, claims for himself what he hopes 
perpetually for his country — Originality, Independence, 
and Freedom. 



COSMONOMY AND PHILOSOPHY. 

DEFINITIONS, EXPLANATIONS, ILLUSTRATIONS. 



Existence proceeds from the unknown. The memory of 
an individual corresponds to a history of the race. Both 
are dependent on revelation for a knowledge of their in- 
fancy. The individual depends on parents or others for all 
knowledge anterior to memory. This is revelation. Reve- 
lations concerning the antiquity of the human race and 
its creations, have engaged thousands of lives in researches 
which are still being earnestly prosecuted. 



PHILOSOPHY AND FACT. XI 

Whatever is brought to light concerning the past is of 
deep and often absorbing interest ; yet, how it lacks in prac- 
tical value as compared with a knowledge of what is and is 
to come. A mariner would gladly exchange all remem- 
brance of past voyages for a knowledge of those he has yet 
to make. The storms he has encountered are not safe 
criteria for those he must meet. They are only admoni- 
tions to prepare for what may never again happen. 

Experience is of much importance, but intelligent forecast 
is of infinitely greater value. The former is important 
chiefly as an aid to the latter. Records and recollections 
are of little worth, save as they supply facts which reveal to 
us laws governing life, and thereby enable us to prepare for 
contingencies. Facts antecede all true philosophy. Facts 
are always true. Philosophies may be false — even when 
founded on facts, if they extend beyond their foundation 
and rest on conclusions or inferences not fully verified as 
correct. 

Everything possible in fact is philosophically true, and 
everything philosophically true is probable in fact. Philoso- 
phies relate to causes ; facts to results. As causes may exist 
without producing results, so there may be philosophical 
truths without facts to correspond. That shipwrecks have 
occurred is a fact, and it may be true that other shipwrecks 
will occur, but it is not yet a fact that they will occur. It is 
philosophically true that if they do occur there will be a 
cause therefor. It is also true that if the same conditions 
encounter like circumstances as before, there will be other 
shipwrecks. 

It is a fact that " ships of state" have been wrecked — that 
nations have risen and fallen. It is also true that nations 
have risen and not fallen. Neither of these facts will do 
for a philosophy except so far as they relate to causes. If it 
be true that the rise of nations has generally been through 
industry, frugality, and self-denial ; and that their fall has 
been through idleness, extravagance, and dissipation — the 



Xll COSMONOMY AND PHILOSOPHY. 

fruits of opulence and ease — breeders of disease; then a 
true philosophy may be established in regard to the causes 
of a nation's development and decline, which is instructive 
concerning the possible future of existing nations. From 
habits which ruin individuals, grow customs which imperil 
republics. 

Human growth and progress are governed by laws which 
are a safe guide to health, business, and good government, — 
hence to success. These laws are as discoverable as laws 
which govern movements among planets and molecules, or 
produce changes in the weather ; and estimates under them 
are as reliable as those which rule in life insurance or any 
scheme not absolutely certain in its results as calculated. 

The stars may fall, and so refute the most exact astrono- 
mies. Earthquakes and tornadoes cannot be foretold nor, 
as yet, prevented, and epidemics are far from being mastered. 
Yet, science is not a failure. She is young and growing, — 
imperfect but improving. Many calamities of more ignorant 
ages are wholly or partially averted by the applications of 
modern science. Much remains to be accomplished in this 
direction, as philosophy becomes perfected and its counter- 
part is applied. Every idea has its opposite, and every 
principle its counterpart. Electricity is two-fold in opera- 
tion, called positive and negative. Pressure has its opposite 
vacuum. Heat and cold, light and darkness, are illustrations 
of the idea which is true of intellectual as well as physical 
operations, and an explanation of one always implies and, 
to some extent, elucidates its opposite ; as in simple mathe- 
matics; addition and subtraction are contraries, yet each 
implies and proves the other, while multiplication and divi- 
sion are likewise reciprocal. 

Philosophy has its counterpart which heretofore has been 
without a name, and hence undefined. Philosophy is defined 
as the science of cause or causes; therefore, it means the 
ascertaining of causes when effects are known, — a reasoning 
from effect to cause. 



COSMONOMY AND COSMONICS. Xlll 

Cosmonomy is the science of sequence— the determin- 
ing of results from known conditions and circumstances; 
that is, from known causes,— a reasoning from cause to 
effect. 

Cosmonics relates to cosmonomy, as applied science relates 
to nominal science in any department. It may be called 
demonstrative cosmonomy. As we may properly call as- 
tronomical calculations astronomies, or philosophical investi- 
gations philosophies, so we may denominate cosmonical 
estimations cosmonics. 

Philosophy and cosmonomy are opposite in meaning, and 
their processes of demonstration are directly the reverse of 
each other; yet each implies the other, and goes far to 
develop and establish the same facts. 

To philosophically show a cause implies the effect. To 
cosmonically show an effect implies the cause. 

The phenomena of earthquakes and volcanoes have called 
forth various theories of their cause, one of which is strongly 
suggested by the discovery of natural gas. The question of 
permanent supply by continuous generation within the earth, 
and the relief of its constantly accumulating pressure by 
spasmodic eruptions in the form of volcanoes, is one of 
great importance, and its settlement would be a philosophic 
solution of the problem. On the other hand; the discovery 
of natural gas and the force of its action with all attendant 
phenomena, and the conclusion that its cause is in continuous 
operation, and that the accumulating pressure, unless other- 
wise relieved, will produce eruptions and vibrations in the 
earth's crust, destructive to life and property ; but that if this 
pressure be relieved by artificial openings — holes bored 
through the crust, in sufficient number to allow of escape 
as rapidly as the gas is formed ; then earthquakes will not 
occur, and volcanoes will not act, and the cause of these 
dreadful disturbances will be turned to account for the profit, 
convenience, and comfort of man, — is an illustration of a 
cosmonic solution of the problem. 



XIV ILLUSTRATIONS 

An illustration more closely in keeping than the foregoing 
with our subject, is afforded by the remarkable difference 
between our two great systems of internal navigation ; in 
origin, operation, and essential features, — the rivers and 
the lakes. 

On a map of North America it is easily seen that the 
water-shed of the lakes is very small, while that of the 
rivers is, perhaps, ten times as great; yet, the unvarying 
flow of the St. Lawrence, may be fully one-half the average 
quantity passing down the Mississippi in ever changing 
stages and frequent floods. A comparison by measurement 
between the Mississippi Rapids and Niagara Falls, in the 
annual amount of water, presents an apparently insur- 
mountable obstacle to an explanation. 

Philosophy at first suggests some underground inlet to the 
lakes, but in its pursuit makes the discovery that storms 
from the East, South, and West, deposit a large portion of 
their moisture on the outer slopes of ridges where it flows 
back instead of reaching the great valley ; while from the 
various northern directions they sweep in, unobstructed by 
great elevations of land, and pour their torrents of rain or 
deposit their snows over the lakes and their borders ; that 
the rivers receive the underground supply from small but 
numberless fountains which, with melting snows from the 
mountain crests and extensive evapoi-ations from so large a 
surface, goes far to make up for what would otherwise be a 
great deficiency of rain. 

On the other hand, cosmonomy begins by observing the 
two areas and sources of supply, the differences in sur- 
roundings and directions of storms, and argues that the lake 
system requires immense reservoirs with a more direct and 
constant outlet, in order to protect the shallow rims from 
overflow, than does the broader basin with its myriads of 
minute sources of the Mississippi. By taking observations 
it is found that the reasoning was correct, and the result as 
cosmonically predicted. 



AND DISTINCTIONS. XV 

One hundred years hence, men will philosophically dis- 
course upon the influences which made the history of this 
country and produced the development then observed. 
Instead of waiting for these results to be seen only by other 
generations, we, of the present, undertake to foresee them 
by taking cognizance now of the influences which are to 
bring them about. Thereby we shall be able to direct our 
efforts in the right channel and realize expectations instead 
of working at random and often wasting energies to suffer 
frequent disappointments. By thus putting ourselves on the 
side of Nature — or of Providence, the results of our efforts 
will be the success of our plans and the enjoyment of bless- 
ings by our children as intended by our fathers. 

Philosophy must await results before the relation between 
them and their causes can be pointed out. Cosmonomy pre- 
dicts consequences, as probabilities foretell the weather. 
Philosophy looks backward ; cosmonomy looks forward. 
Philosophy is the root ; cosmonomy is the uppergrowth of 
the tree of knowledge. Philosophy is the foundation, and 
cosmonomy the superstructure of one edifice. Which is the 
most practical and therefore useful, is left for the reader to 
decide. Both are important, comprehensive, and universal 
in application, — relating to all things. 

The philosophy of life and health, disease and death, points 
to the causes which produce them. Cosmonomy starts with 
influences — with habits, actions, and environments, and shows 
the inevitable results. The philosophy of our country — the 
United States — in government, growth, and general pros- 
perity, refers continually to experience or history, — points 
out causes, and hopes with fear concerning the future. The 
cosmonics of our country — the United States — calculates the 
results, inevitable, of causes which we see exist, — the condi- 
tions and circumstances which forecast the form and con- 
tinuance of our country as a nation or as a people. Our 
argument is from the material standpoint, and we offer it as 
demonstration. Any other system is chiefly speculation. 



XVI PHYSICAL BASIS. 

The natural is believed to be the persistent and hence 
ultimately dominant element in our national evolution. Al- 
though political, religious, and other influences will interfere, 
they will finally be moulded and conformed as originally 
designed and here indicated, by the material conditions which 
exist and the physical agencies at work. These are the 
millstones which "grind slowly but exceeding fine." 

Man is the child of Nature and the parent of Art. So, 
Art is the grand-child of Nature. The antics of Art may 
cause Nature to smile or to frown, but cannot alter the con- 
stitution or change the disposition of the ancestor it must 
finally obey. The arts of man may alter the aspects of 
Nature, but must finally conform to its conditions. 

Truth is never at war with Nature, and both are in 
harmony with the most perfect freedom. " He is a freeman 
whom the truth makes free and all are slaves besides," 
is an undisputed proverb; and Humboldt's "Nature is the 
empire of freedom," is more terse, and equally true. 

The natural present, in both time and things, affords the 
most certain, accessible, and practical knowledge of all that 
is, and the clearest vision of all that lies beyond. 

As man cannot be perfect so long as he is progressing, and 
while he remains imperfect is liable to err ; so, perfection is 
not pretended in this effort to show young Americans the 
highest incentives to virtue and patriotism that ever existed 
as a country and as a nation. Confidence is a condition of 
success. It inspires to lofty efforts accompanied with zeal. 
To produce these is a leading motive of the author. This 
purpose accomplished, — there should be no fear for the 
fruits, where the seed sown by our fathers was so perfect 
and the conditions of growth are so favorable. 

The subject admits of great diversity and extension in 
public discourse. Here it is formally divided into three 
lectures. 



COSMONICS OF THE UNITED STATES. 




LECTURE I. 

"Westward the course of empire takes its way," 
And lifts the standard of its civil sway, 
At each remove more high, more wide, more free, 
Till its domain extends from sea to sea. 

O know the future is the strongest desire 
of the human mind. 

To foretell the events of this world 
is the highest mission of prophecy. 

To foresee the changes in our day 
and generation is the speculation of 
our lives. 

Changes are constantly taking place which enhance 
or retard our success, increase or diminish values, help 
or hinder the accumulation of wealth, and add to or 
detract from our comforts and enjoyments. 

The aims of life are, in a large degree, accomplished 
or thwarted according as we are able to exercise judi- 
cious foresight or calculate results, and thus adapt means 
to ends. 

As individuals we know these to be facts, and they 
are no less true in public than in private affairs,— no 
less true of states than of persons. 

The tide of war, the permanence of peace, the pros- 
perity of a people, depend much upon prescience and 
sagacity. 



2 COSMONICS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

Admit that some of the most important events occur 
when least anticipated, that great changes take place at 
times and in manners least expected, that in every 
decade we see our imaginations outstripped by realities, 
that fortunes, though often made — they are oftener 
lost — by the most egregious blunders, that the best 
laid plans are thwarted and terminate in the most unex- 
pected way; these do not argue against our statements, 
but confirm them. Mistakes evince the ivant of fore- 
sight, not its uselessness. 

Intelligent prediction is the best guarantee of success, 
and our purpose here is to canvass the probabilities of 
this age and the future with reference to this country, 
in order that we may economize our efforts, and, as far 
as possible, ensure success for ourselves, for our children, 
and for humanity. 

It is in the future and for others that we chiefly live. 
We enjoy the products of others' labor, and others must 
reap the fruits of our toil. We owe a debt to our 
ancestors, which we must pay to posterity. Our liberties 
were earned by our fathers. We must guard and pre- 
serve them for our children. 

For posterity we earn, we save, we endure hardships, 
we fight battles, we organize governments, draft consti- 
tutions, legislate, make investments, speculate, build 
cities, erect institutions of learning, and construct stu- 
pendous works of art. So we shall continue to do as 
we are prompted by both desire and duty. 

Lives devoted to present gratification and personal 
ends are degenerate and base, while noble minds are 



COSMONICS OF THE UNITED STATES. 3 

broad and unselfish, sacrificing present pleasures for 
future benefits, — themselves for the race. 

We venerate the memory of those who laid down 
their fortunes and their lives to create and preserve our 
liberties. Christ died, not for himself but for humanity. 
Washington lived, not for his kindred but for his 
country. Lincoln is immortal, because he emancipated 
a race not his own. 

The prophets were the precursors of Christianity, 
and our early patriots paved the way for our freedom. 
Thus, our civilization is born of the labors of long ago. 

It is the privilege of us all to be saviors; it is not 
necessary that all should be martyrs. 

Whatever helps us to avoid mistakes in the future, is 
akin to that which relieves us from the consequences of 
errors in the past. Light thrown upon our pathway is 
a benefaction second only to that self-sacrifice which 
made such pathway possible. 

Men with more than ordinary perspicacity are favored 
above their fellows. To them tendencies of the present 
are signs of the prospective. This is an advantage 
which of right belongs to all, but is possessed by few. 
Hence the need of more general information from which 
all may draw rational conclusions. 

All things pertaining to our welfare as individuals or 
as a people, are subject to unvarying laws the observance 
of which is important ; for prosperity is founded upon 
principles as permanent as those which govern changes 
in the weather, and their probabilities may be as easily 
discerned. A general knowledge of these laws and 



4 COSMONICS OP THE UNITED STATES. 

intelligent adaptation of business to them will bring 
equally certain results. 

The transit of Venus across the sun's disc is no more 
certain, and of vastly less importance to us, than the 
transit q/" empire across the face of North America. 

It is no more certain that the population of this 
country will be doubled and probably increased tenfold, 
than that it will settle in largest numbers upon the 
fertile plains of the great interior. 

That civilization will progress, that agriculture, com- 
merce, and manufactures, will grow, and that art and 
science will thrive accordingly, is not questioned, but 
these are no more certain than that the scene of their 
grandest triumphs will be in the Mississippi Valley. 
This vast basin is rapidly becoming what it is destined 
ultimately to be, — the paradise of republicanism, con- 
trolling the destinies of the nation, — the fountain of 
ameliorating civilization and the central granary of the 
world. 

If it be objected that this is theoretical, I reply that 
it is also logical, and therefore practical. Theories 
should not be objected to merely because they are 
such. Theories are our guiding-stars in the march of 
empire, both of matter and of mind. They are the 
antecedents of civilization. Theorists are the pioneers 
of progress. They are the headlights of humanity. 
Theory always precedes practice. Theories are ideas 
unfolded, and ideas are the mainsprings of action. Ideas 
are the primaries of existence. Ideas are the monarchs 
of the universe, and theories are their offspring. Hence, 



COSMONICS OF THE UNITED STATES. 5 

theories are princes among principles. Ideas are not the 
work of design ; they are born, not made. The idea of 
the earth's rotundity was not created by Columbus. It 
was fathered by circumstances, conceived in his fertile 
brain, born as a thought, grew to a theory, and matured 
as a fact. His philosophy, though profound, excited 
the greatest incredulity, and was the object of much 
witty satire ; but the realities of to-day evince the folly 
of his learned foes. 

Every important advance in civilization and in science, 
every effort for the amelioration of man, has had to 
stem the tide of popular belief. I expect, therefore, to 
express some ideas, to advance some theories, and to 
utter some prognostications, that will cause the shaking 
of incredulous heads. I am fully convinced, however, 
that many thoughtful and earnest persons will agree 
with the predictions here made, and that these will be 
fully verified by speedy events in the rapid course of 
time. 

The subject is, to say the least, interesting ; and the 
one more than all others which absorbs the speculative 
mind in America. It is a problem, not the most diffi- 
cult that science has to solve, but it is of exceeding 
importance and has an interest for most of us that 
abstract questions do not possess. It is, so to speak, 
the bread and butter of existence. Every human 
interest, whether financial or philanthropic, is con- 
cerned in it. It is the business aspect thereof, however, 
that we propose chiefly to consider at present. 

The tide of commerce, the development of industry, 



6 COSMONICS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

the concentration and distribution of material wealth 
and political power, the independence and union oj 
the states, the freedom and comfort of their people, are all 
considerations under the subject here presented. 

We do not project plans nor ask from you energy or 
the assuming of responsibility in the prosecution of a 
great work. We are here, not to show you what can 
and should be done, but to observe what has been, is 
being, and will be as a necessity under the conditions 
which exist. 

The plans are already laid by a greater than human 
genius and the work is being directed by a greater than 
human skill. It remains for us to discover the plans, 
to advantageously occupy the positions and use the 
materials so beneficently placed at our disposal, in order 
that we may escape the delays and losses which result 
from misdirected enterprise. True success is not merely 
procrastinated or hindered by a misguided effort or 
investment; it is often defeated thereby. A thousand 
dollars wisely invested, is worth more to the individual 
and to the world, than a million wrongly used. 

The mistakes of ignorance are more numerous than 
the individuals who deplore them ; and what is true of 
a person is also true of a people. 

Causes will bring their consequences. Whether these 
be to our advantage or otherwise, depends upon our 
observance of natural laws. Truth is independent of 
human preferences, and to announce a theory is not to 
advocate a policy. Do not, therefore, understand me as 
pleading a cause, but rather as pointing to a consequence. 



COSMONICS OF THE UNITED STATES. 7 

The plans of Nature are the purposes of God; and 
these it is always safe to follow. Any theory consis- 
tent therewith, it is unwise to disregard and folly to 
denounce. 

A nation is an amplified man. As the child is father 
to the man, and as the physical organism is an index of 
the mental and moral nature in a human being ; so is 
this country, — still in its adolescence, — the parent of its 
future, and its physical qualities determine the character 
of the civilization which it is to contain and the influence 
it will exert. Its form is established, and its develop- 
ment sufficiently advanced to give a clear conception of 
its future being. Its Anatomy and Physiology afford a 
most interesting subject for practical study and specula- 
tion. 



The North American continent, by its geographical 
position, commercial advantages, and favorable condi- 
tions of soil, climate, and the various elements of life, 
prosperity, and peace, is unquestionably destined to sup- 
port the most independent and powerful nation on 
earth, composed of a people the happiest, wisest, and 
most free. 

Its latent wealth exceeds the belief, if not the ambi- 
tion, of the wildest schemers, and the millionaires of 
to-day are but pigmies compared to the financial giants 
of the future, while the comforts of the masses, now 
superior to those of all others in the world, are far below 
the pleasures ultimately to be enjoyed in this paradise 
of the people which is destined to become superlatively 



8 COSMONICS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

productive in all the essentials of happiness, the greatest 
repository of material wealth, literature and art, with 
incomparable laboratories of science and schools of 
philosophy, and the most extensive field for the opera- 
tions of labor and enterprise; while the resources of 
every country on the globe will be laid under peaceful 
contribution to augment our wealth, to be returned in 
like benefactions through American commerce. 

The entire acreage of our productive soil will be culti- 
vated, our valuable mines developed, and all facilities 
employed in manufacturing industry, creating goods of 
every grade of both utility and ornament, making this 
land the repository of every comfort, the storehouse of 
luxury and the home of transcendent beauty. 

Its resources of sustenance and trade are ample for 
a population of more than twenty times its present 
number which it will, without doubt, ultimately con- 
tain. Nor is this condition very far in the eventful 
future. If in a hundred years * we have grown from 
three millions of people to fifty millions, under circum- 
stances of great disadvantage, will not the lapse of 
another century bring with it a near approach of our 
fulfilled prophecy ? The strength we have gathered and 
the instruments of progress at our command, will carry 
us within the mentioned time, far beyond the reach of 
popular estimate. A part of the present generation will 
live to see the greatness we predict well on its way, 
while the vast future is before us with its grand pro- 



* Written for the Centennial, 1876. 



COSMONICS OF THE UNITED STATES. 9 

cesses which are now taking shape. Our nation is in 
the morning of its day. The sun has arisen and is 
ascending towards the zenith. What of its noon-tide 
glory, — its decline ? 

Oh, could we but peer into the coming ages, what 
magnificent changes and scenes of grandeur would be 
presented ! As we cannot lift the veil, let us discover 
what we may by looking through it. If the view we 
here take appears indistinct, we may be sure that a 
clearer one would not show a less hopeful prospect. Let 
us for a moment examine the bases for these conclusions 
and see if the picture be overdrawn. 

Commanding the broad sweep of both oceans, we can 
successfully compete with all countries for the commerce 
of the world. We are not menaced by other nations ; 
for the Atlantic and Pacific roll between us and any 
formidable military power. Thus protected on either 
side by a gulf so broad and deep as to be practically 
impassable by armies in sufficient numbers to give them 
hope or us fear of successful invasion ; we have no cause 
for apprehension of any demonstrations which jealous 
or ambitious despots can make against us. 

Thus, these ocean wastes, while highways of civilizing 
commerce and peaceful intercourse, are means of defense 
against incursions by barbarous and brutalizing war; 
and the only land approaches between us and the 
old world are effective barriers to conquering hosts on 
account of distance and frost in the Arctic regions. 

The Isthmus of Panama on the south, as the ice- 
bound zone on the north, forbids a combination between 



10 COSMONICS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

the navies of our opposite neighbors in the event of a 
war against the world.* Instead of being on a one- 
sided half of the continent, and contending with an 
alien rival for supremacy, we hold the position favored 
in all respects, with our neighbors on either side widely- 
separated and hopelessly divided socially as well as geo- 
graphically, beyond the power to combine for conquest 
or embarrassment. 

Thus, Nature provides us, free from cost or care, 
defenses far better than standing armies. 

If the order of Nature is an index of that which is 
to be, certainly the physical aspects of this continent 
as well as its historical relations with the East, are 
sublime intimations of the will of Providence. 

The fertility of its soil, the favorableness of its posi- 
tion, the grandeur of its form, and the extent of its 
spaces, seem to have prepared it for the vastest and most 
powerful association of men on earth. Already it has 
become to all nations the land of the future — the central 
flower of the terrestrial globe. 

Scientific invention and settlement in America are 
coeval and coincident. Here genius is indigenous. 
The field was reserved until the fullness of time when 
intellect had advanced to a condition fit for successful 
occupation of the country which could then be improved 
and embellished unhindered by creed or craft — unob- 
structed by ambition, ignorance, and concomitant evils 
so fatal to progress and human welfare. 

* Should the Isthmus be divided by a ship canal uniting the two 
oceans, the United States will be able to control it. 



COSMONICS OF THE UNITED STATES. 11 

To enjoy the animating spirit of such an age as this, 
flushed with the triumphs of mind over matter, of truth 
over error, of liberty over tyranny, and intelligence over 
prejudice; to live in such a country while in its youth- 
ful vigor and the fresh bloom of its unfolding beauty; 
to partake of its energies, to share in its blessings and 
forecast its glorious future, — is a privilege too grand for 
tongue to express or pen describe. What an incentive 
to live, — truly, virtuously, manfully ! 

Our gratitude for these favors can best be shown by 
a practical appreciation of them, a manifest zeal for 
their continuance, and the bestowal of their blessings 
upon the greatest possible number of our fellow beings. 

We may labor for this and be demonstrative in our 
gratitude, and still with a laudable desire pursue our 
studies for opportunities of higher benefits and the 
means of their perpetuity. To aid us in this we may 
draw much from recorded experience ; but history is too 
voluminous for extensive reference here; besides, it is 
extant in elaborate print and may be consulted at any 
time. 

Some brief allusions must serve the present purpose 
enough to show that our theory is supported by facts as 
well as by philosophy, and that it is consistent with 
universal law which, in its opei'ations, we may inter- 
pret as Divine purpose or otherwise, according to our 
peculiar theisms. This will also give a world-wide 
scope to the matter in hand, and may help to form 
important conclusions on kindred subjects relating to 
other countries. This country and its future is our 



12 COSMONICS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

theme. The present is the base from which the future 
must rise, and hence commands attention. 



" Faith in perpetual progression is the creed of virtue." 

" From all the premises furnished by experience and 
the fullest assurance of faith, we must infer that this con- 
tinent, ruled by the republic now occupying^ its centre 
and eventually to embrace its entire area, is destined to 
garner the selected seed from antecedent harvests that it 
may sow world-wide the germs of universal worth." 

"If we inquire as to the origin, area and destiny of 
human progress, it will be found that Asia was its 
place of beginning, Europe its intermediate track, and 
America its manifest goal." 

" In the unpausing advance of humanity in its pre- 
determined career, the material future of this country 
will be grand, its mental future sublime, its moral future 
glorious." * 

Many reforms now pending will then have exceeded 
the present expectation of their advocates ; while ex- 
crescences of so-called reform, with their projectors, will 
have been extinguished. The dross discarded ; the 
genuine, crystalized, refined, coined, accepted and estab- 
lished ; — how superior to the crude of to-day ! 



* THe above quotations from the writings of that profound scholar, 
able teacher and eminent divine — E. L. Magoon, D. D. — are given 
in support of the views here expressed, which, but for the prominence 
of that author, might seem extravagant concerning the future great- 
ness of this country and the social order which will be established 
in the zenith of its glory. Elias Lyman Magoon deceased at Phila- 
delphia, November 25, 1886. 



COSMONICS OF THE UNITED STATES. 13 

Then indeed will those who may stand as orators to 
celebrate our Nation's birth, or Centennial Anniversa- 
ries; 

" Look round on a virtuous and happy people ;" 

" Zealous, yet modest ; innocent, though free ; 

" Patient of toil ; serene amidst alarms ; 

" Inflexible in faith, invincible in arms." 

The higher phases of our development are, for the 
most part, at present deferred, not because they are less 
important, but because it is Nature's rule in the order of 
progression, to first develop the physical — the tangible. 
This first addresses itself to our observation, first 
awakens our interests, falls quickest within the scope 
of our comprehension, and will prepare the way for 
those loftier topics which are to crown our civilization 
and exalt our mission as a free people. It is through 
the power of a superior enlightenment rather than by 
military force, that the people of the United States of 
America will yet extend their peaceful sway over the 
whole earth. This can hardly be doubted by any who 
have considered our advantages and the instrumentali- 
ties by which future victories are to be achieved. The 
extent to which these instrumentalities will be at the 
command of Americans may be easily estimated as 
greatly in our favor, by a comparison between this and 
other countries where long established institutions and 
customs prevail, with a strong opposition to changes 
and innovations. The progressive elements of those 
peoples emigrate, and representing all nationalities, 
bring hither ideas and materials which by comparison 



14 COSMONICS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

of merits, give to the whole, opportunities for valuable 
selections ; or, by combining, evolve new thoughts and 
produce new commodities superior to all originals. So 
all the vital excellencies developed and superseded 
through periods of invention and construction, will 
become resuscitated and unified upon this continent. 
In this way the genius of the world is practically laid 
under contribution to that of America, and the con- 
servation of each for the good of all is no insignificant 
part of America's work. The stimulus of rivalry is 
thus made active, and a desire for the newest and best 
continues to grow. Invention creates a demand for its 
own productions by suggesting new uses for them, 
whereby America becomes the greatest patron of her 
own creations and, at the same time, the best market for 
everything novel from abroad. 

As facilities for producing are increased and more 
work is done by fewer hands, thereby cheapening com- 
modities and eliminating labor ; invention extends to 
the creation of other kinds of goods. New forms and 
increased varieties give rise to greater demands, enlarg- 
ing the sphere of industry while adding to the comforts 
and luxuries of life. Thus the labor problem is being 
self-solved. 

Ideas are generative, and a real conception in a 
fertile brain is a guaranteed progenitor of a thousand 
thoughts. So, new ideas in education and ethics also find 
among Americans at once the readiest champions and 
the keenest critics. The friction of mind brings the fire 
of thought, and America with her great diversity of 



COSMONICS OF THE UNITED STATES. 15 

intellects is the best place in the world to analyze theo- 
ries and doctrines. Hence, this is the great exchange 
mart for thoughts as well as things, and the best head- 
quarters for all improvements. 

One invention leads to another and their various uses 
become schools of application. The process is cumula- 
tive ; so, while the United States is regarded as a foun- 
tain of inventive genius, it is also becoming noted for 
its constructive skill, both of which are productive of 
the facilities for spreading abroad a knowledge of their 
various uses. 

These added to the already existing means for con- 
veying implements and intelligence, enable us to send 
them throughout the world almost at the instant of their 
creation. With what speed from the centre to either 
shore, and what dispatch thence across to the islands 
and countries beyond, the products of our soil and 
brains are conveyed to comfort and elevate humanity 
everywhere. 

The means of spreading our influence are at once 
numerous and prolific. The occurrences of to-day 
appear in print throughout the world to-morrow. 
Millions of letters from immigrants to foreign friends, 
American travelers abroad and foreign travelers in this 
country returning to their homes, all disseminating a 
knowledge of the ideas and actions in America, are 
scattering the seeds of Christianity and liberality to 
remotest lands. 

Our means of rapid transit and quick intelligence 
facilitate the management of a large country under one 



16 COSMONICS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

government, as could not have been done in earlier 
centuries. Railroads and telegraphs are elements of 
unity, and render practicable the control of a whole 
continent from one capital. 

The growth of our country will, for some time to 
come, be characterized by vast changes in relation as 
well as of condition and circumstance. There will be 
much, not only of transition, but of transposition. 

Prominence, influence, and importance, are in a mea- 
sure migratory. New localities are constantly gaining 
upon old ones. The centre of population is traveling 
and the channels of commerce are shifting or extending, 
as the stream of immigration pushes its way into new 
fields of habitation and industry ; but they will ulti- 
mately settle where they must with approximate per- 
manency remain. 

The vastness of our present national domain and its 
probable extension over the whole continent, lead both 
the curious and the enterprising to inquire, — what por- 
tion is provided by nature with the largest number and 
the highest order of advantages of human life and com- 
fort, and the best facilities for business? For, if these 
elements of civilization are combined in one region 
more than another, there will population, wealth, and 
political power, concentrate ; drawing around them the 
means of enjoyment and of satisfying human ambition; 
there will values most increase, — Art and Education be 
best fostered. 

Our broad area with its great variety of soils, climates 
and productions, is accommodated to all tastes and con- 



COSMONICS OF THE UNITED STATES. 17 

ditions of people. There are many sections widely 
distributed, which are destined to become scenes of 
activity, prosperity and magnificence. Many new cities 
will rise and rival the old and established centres of 
trade. Some of them will be widely separated and, as 
in the case of New York and San Francisco, may 
become rivals without being injuriously competitive. 

City and village population will gain upon the agri- 
cultural, for the reason that machinery is eliminating 
hand-labor on farms, while it calls for more extensive 
manufacture to produce, not only the machinery, but a 
vast amount of other commodities demanded by the 
higher grades of civilization. Even fences, now, are 
city-made and sold to farmers. At the same time cities 
are becoming less crowded, and are spread over larger 
areas than formerly, — thanks to rapid transit and 
suburban methods. Sanitary knowledge and appliances 
will bar out contagious and other diseases, while a better 
acquaintance with the laws of life will ere long teach 
people to abstaiu from using tobacco, fermentations, dis- 
tillations, and drug medicines ; and less, and less it will 
be said that "My people are destroyed for lack of 
knowledge." The havoc of war will also cease to 
destroy our best stock of men and lay waste cities and 
homes. Thereby property will be saved from wanton 
spoliation, and population will not only increase, but 
improve by better hereditation. 

But while the centres of commerce and manufacture 
will be numerous, a few are destined to surpass the 
many, and one or two must become superior to any of 
2 



18 COSMONICS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

the rest. These will stand at those points which, more 
than any others, possess the elements of success ; where 
geographical position, local advantages, and means of 
intercourse, are best combined for a permanent centraliz- 
ing of commerce and for serving the interests of the whole 
country. 

To point out these sections and localities and to give 
reasons for the conclusions arrived at, is one aim of these 
discourses. 

While undertaking to show by incontrovertible evi- 
dence based on positive facts, the future greatness and 
relative superiority of a central region, we shall not 
under-estimate the full significance of the surrounding 
margin; and especially the vast group of states lying 
along our eastern coast, as also its counter-group ranging 
upon the western limits, known as the Atlantic and the 
Pacific slopes. 

The blooming South and the vigorous North are not 
to be ignored ; but on the contrary, must receive as they 
deserve, an estimate showing that they are to cut no 
mean figure in the great drama of American civiliza- 
tion,— that civilization which is to be wrought out upon 
this continent so admirably selected and so well arranged 
for the consummation of human progress, perfection and 
beauty. 

It is a bold plan, conceived in infinite wisdom, carried 
forward upon a stupendous scale, fraught with inci- 
dents of thrilling interest, and leading to the grandest 
triumphs. 

We cannot estimate the future growth of our sections 



COSMONICS OF THE UNITED STATES. 19 

or cities by the standard of experience alone, for many 
of onr precedents in both commerce and manufacture 
are arbitrary, and will not remain under more normal 
and improved conditions. 



The past is to some extent a criterion for the future, 
and teaches many lessons of great value. Alone, how- 
ever, it is an unsafe guide, and leads to ruinous mistakes. 

The failures which have befallen others are finger- 
points of caution to us, but the causes which led to them 
are not always to be shunned in entering upon new 
undertakings. The lamp of experience throws its light 
in but one direction — backwards. In its reflection we 
clearly see the tortuous path we have trod ; and seen by 
it only, the future is quite as indirect and uncertain. 
But the Sun of Science has arisen, and throwing its 
lucid beams along our future, makes plain the way. 

Comparatively few men are liberal enough to admit 
the truth of any theory or philosophy which conflicts 
with their preconceived opinions or seems to militate 
against their interests. 

Precedents in business like preconceived notions in 
philosophy or confirmed social habits are tenacious of 
their hold. The inborn attachment to places of nativity, 
faith in ancestral wisdom, in the stability of existing 
institutions, and in the abiding pre-eminence of the now 
dominant sections and cities, all tend to form prejudices 
in favor of long settled regions as the homes of security 
and comfort, and against untried localities. 



20 COSMONICS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

Hence comes the idea long held, still entertained, 
and to be reluctantly surrendered ; that the commercial 
supremacy of the Atlantic states is to be maintained, 
with New York city as the financial centre of the con- 
tinent, and ultimately of the world. 

In the colonization of new countries the first settle- 
ments and cities are necessarily located upon the borders ; 
these being first reached, most easily defended from 
attacks by natives, and convenient for obtaining provi- 
sions and other goods until the colonists are able to 
produce for themselves. As these settlements extend 
toward the interior, the trade centres incline to follow 
the centres of population, so far as permitted by trans- 
portation facilities for the interchange of commodities at 
home and exchanges abroad. New countries are for 
a long time dependent on older ones for manufactured 
wares, and as a market for the sale of surplus agricul- 
tural and other products known as raw materials, and 
therefore for most of their commerce. The manufac- 
tures of a country do not cut a prominent figure in the 
early stages of its development. 



These facts are eminently true of the North American 
colonies whose progress was made through severe trials 
and under great difficulties of antagonism and oppres- 
sion. Hence their commerce thrived chiefly by exports 
and imports, and as commerce made their cities, these 
grew upon or near the Atlantic shore and, as a conse- 
quence, the Atlantic states take precedence in population 



COSMONICS OF THE UNITED STATES. 21 

and the accumulation of wealth, with an assurance of 
being so maintained until wider and more fertile fields 
are developed. Providential or not, necessity drove our 
ancestors to the uninviting shores of New England 
before the natural gardens of the great inland valleys 
were known to civilization, or by the agency of inven- 
tion had been rendered accessible and furnished with 
means of protection to settlers in the midst of a savage 
foe. 

Where communities, trade, and manufactures, are 
once established, localities often retain their importance 
longer than they would but for the losses attending 
sudden changes by removal. This is very well, foi 
healthful transitions are generally gradual while violence 
is apt to be destructive. On the contrary, when the 
power of precedence takes morbid hold on the convic- 
tions, serious losses are incurred by clinging obstinately 
to old ideas. The commerce of New York and the 
manufactures of New England could not be immediately 
transferred to other sections without serious loss. It is 
not necessary that they be transferred at all in order to 
fulfil the conditions of our development as here pre- 
dicted ; but in the aggregate growth of industry and 
trade which are sure to keep abreast of our increase of 
population, the ratio of development will be so largely 
in favor of the interior, that the great central 
region will far outstrip its ancestral east in most of 
the enterprises, activities, and accomplishments of life. 

If we were always to depend upon foreign countries 
for our fabrics, and upon the exportation of food and 



22 COSMONICS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

unwrought materials for our balance of trade; or, if 
the Eastern States were better adapted by situation and 
otherwise than the Interior, for their production, the 
transfer of commercial supremacy from seaboard to 
center might well be considered a question of truth 
rather than of time ; but we shall show the reverse of 
these conditions. 



This continent, for a hundred years, was occupied by 
civilized races but little beyond the territory of the 
so-called Original States where fabrics, tools, machinery, 
and even simple articles of food at first had to be 
imported. 

As the country became peopled and productive 'and 
began to take on the form of government, assuming the 
direction of its own affairs, diversified industries became 
essential to its prosperity and independence, and to its 
distinct national existence. Manufacturing towns and 
cities sprung up, new lines and improved means of com- 
munication were opened, and thenceforward changes 
took place in all of its processes, until it has become 
noted for its internal improvements and its enterprises. 
Exports and imports continue to increase, but they lose in 
relative importance, being surpassed by home exchanges 
which have come to constitute its principal traffic. 

As the whole country becomes populated, economy 
as well as due respect for the rights and interests of 
all sections of the commonwealth, requires that the loca- 
tion of its COMMERCIAL CAPITALS and the SEAT OF 
GOVERNMENT be OS GEOGRAPHICALLY CENTRAL AS 



COSMONICS OF THE UNITED STATES. 23 

practicable, considering the unequal densities of its 
population, the importance of local interests, eligibility of 
site, conformation of country, feasibility of communi- 
cation with all portions thereof, and the character of its 
industries with reference to both its domestic and foreign 
trade. 

With increase in population and wealth, the wants of 
a people grow along with their abilities. Demand is 
therefore the foundation of both industry and trade, and 
we have only to consider the extent of this demand in 
creating the commerce and manufactures of the United 
States up to this time, in order to form some idea of our 
country's future development under their influence. 

Our imports and manufactures, extensive as they 
both are, have only furnished the trade of a people 
whose wants were moderate and numbers comparatively 
small. Beginning with the bare necessities of a few 
provincial colonies, and growing as they increased in 
population with improved conditions and tastes to fifty 
millions,* they have given rise through unparalleled 
development to the evidences of commercial greatness 
which we now behold on every hand. 

If this great prosperity, these comforts and con- 
veniences, these displays of intelligence, genius, and 
skill ; these populous cities busy with active life, this 
great maritime trade and these extensive inland high- 
ways, natural and artificial, aggregating 150,000 miles 
in length, are the fruits of labor and enterprise spring- 



* Written for Centennial year, 1876. 



24 COSMONICS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

ing in so short a time from an origin of poverty 
and weakness, through hardship, toil, and suffering, to 
national independence, respectability and greatness before 
the world ; what may we not expect in wealth, influence, 
and moral grandeur in the near future when our popu- 
lation shall have doubled ? What, when it shall have 
increased ten-fold ? 

What may we not hope for in remoter years as the 
boon of those for whom we now toil — for posterity? 
With an inheritance such as never yet fell to any people, 
they will (if our duty be well performed) rejoice in a 
country embracing the whole continent and containing, 
not fifty millions, but Jive hundred millions, perhaps a 
thousand millions of ingenious and educated citizens, 
borne onward in a light which proceeds from forty cen- 
turies of experience, intensified by advanced science, 
harmonized by a perfect philosophy, and purified by 
a true religion, all blending under the auspices of a 
free government administering wholesome laws to an 
obedient people — imbued with a lofty patriotism and 
skilled .in the arts of peace. 

How unlike the past will be the aspect of affairs 
when the extent of our commerce and the growth of our 
industries shall reverse the order of trade ; when raw 
materials and the necessaries of life shall find an ample 
market here, and, in their stead, manufactured goods 
shall furnish our chief exports, besides meeting all wants 
at home, unequalled as these will become through the 
progress of civilization and the demands of luxury; 
when the United States, instead of borrowing capital 



COSMONICS OF THE UNITED STATES. 25 

from abroad, will have enough to supply every local 
demand and an abundance for use in foreign countries, 
especially for the extension of our influence and com- 
merce over the Pacific Ocean and throughout Eastern 
Asia, and the wide fields that exist for the development 
of American enterprise, from Australia to Japan and 
from Tahiti to Hindostan. In that part of the world is 
a vast population waiting for foreign trade, besides 
material resources of boundless extent to be developed. 
The commanding position we hold and the advantages 
offered by our western sea-board, give into the hands of 
Americans the control of the greater part of that here- 
tofore eastern, but now western trade. 

Our most speculative dreams have never approximated 
the magnitude of our future commerce in this direction, 
and the flood of wealth it will pour across the Pacific 
into the lap of America, — adding greatly to her cities, 
enriching her merchants and capitalists, and furnishing 
profitable employment of every kind for the American 
people. However important it may become and to what- 
ever extent it may grow, the case is clear that so far as 
maritime commerce is concerned, our Pacific, rather than 
our Atlantic cities, will have the direct benefit. Already 
this traffic is considerable, and it is by no means ex- 
travagant to suppose that it may yet grow to exceed in 
value our similar relations with Europe. 

The more alike the inhabitants and employments of 
different countries, the stronger is their competition in 
fabrics and other products, and therefore, the less their 
mutual exchanges; while the wider the difference 



26 COSMONICS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

between peoples and productions, the larger their ex- 
changes and consequently their commerce. So that our 
trade with Asia will evidently increase, while with 
Europe it is destined, relatively, to decline. In such 
a case, who will say that our Atlantic cities will not 
find themselves outrivaled by Pacific ports, or that New 
York will always be superior to San Francisco ? May 
not the magnificent harbor, fine lumber, inexhaustible 
fisheries, and nearer proximity to Trans-Pacific shores, 
besides numerous other advantages, yet demand a city at 
Puget Sound surpassing either of the others in magni- 
tude and importance ? But of this farther on. 

There is another fact of too much importance to pass 
unnoticed. Our principal mining interests, so far as the 
precious metals are concerned, are nearer to these cities 
and more likely to contribute to their wealth than to 
cities of the East. This is an interest which will capi- 
talize itself by its world-wide recognition of value and 
the insatiable demands of all nations. It possesses the 
power of self-augmentation to a degree limited only by 
the supply of material which is practically exhaustless 
in this region and eastward to the rocky range. Still 
in its infancy, it has already set the world agog with its 
immense yield and still greater promises. As a means 
of national power it may yet prove to be second only to 
agriculture. Husbandry, the acknowledged source of 
our strength and foundation of our prosperity, has for 
its principal field of operations, the broad area lying 
between the Allegheny and the Rocky Mountains, which 
is planned by nature on the most magnificent scale of any 



COSMONICS OF THE UNITED STATES. 27 

in the world. It is the great Cornucopia from 

WHICH NO SECTION OF THE COUNTRY CAN AFFORD TO 
SEPARATE OR BE CUT OFF. 



Necessity and desire are the ruling incentives of our 
nature. Food is man's first necessity, and gold the 
chief symbol of his desires and object of his acquisi- 
tion. Existence and avarice are the spurs of his energy. 
Hence, the productive soil and the yielding mine are his 
most valued possessions. Constrained by the strongest 
incentives of his nature, man ever clings with unyielding 
grasp to these two objects of his intensest zeal. 

The vaults of the mountains and the valley of the 
Mississippi, occupying adjacent sections of our domain, 
and central in position, are the pillars of strength to our 
national unity. Existing in richest abundance at appro- 
priate distances and in the best positions between the 
Atlantic and Pacific shores, they seem designed by Provi- 
dence as Union ties welded in common interest — that most 
tenacious of human forces, stronger than armies and 
more impregnable than fortresses — sustaining the grand 
fabric of freedom against any strain which can be 
brought to bear by the satanic policy of corrupt men in 
their wicked attempts to break this nation into fragments. 
Nowhere else on the globe is there a country so well 
planned for permanence and power. 

It possesses every requirement for sustaining the 
largest number of people of any nation in the most 
absolute independence, and at the same time is so cir- 



28 COSMONICS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

cumstanced as to afford the best facilities for intercourse 
with all the world. It has no dividing barriers. On 
the contrary our mountain ranges and inland seas are 
so distributed and arranged as to combine the whole 
into a unit, — forming a strong compact. The elevations 
so necessary to irrigation and drainage, instead of occu- 
pying the middle of the continent and separating the 
country into two or more political divisions with great 
slopes descending from the centre outwards, giving rise 
to destructive floods, are distributive in their effect on 
rain falls, being disposed in separate ranges like bul- 
warks of defense on either side of an interjacent plain 
which forms the great bosom of our country. 

Our chain of lakes, while centrally and conveniently 
located, instead of stretching as broad waters from 
border to border like a far-reaching sea, parting the 
continent in twain, is mostly folded into a cluster of 
links of gigantic proportions, magnificent in repose, like 
arms of Power in the lap of Peace ; yet so disposed as 
to afford navigable communication between distant parts 
of the interior, and in such a manner as to unite, not 
separate the sections reached — to promote combination, 
not dissolution ; symbolizing our states, which, though 
distinct yet united, are many in one, — and that insepar- 
able. 

This cluster though in a body combined, is still not 
confined, for one or two links with their connections and 
continuations * forming a strong arm of majestic length, 



* Lover Lakes with Niagara and St. Lawrence Kivers. 



COSMONICS OF THE UNITED STATES. 29 

are so extended as to grasp the sea and render the whole 
more complete by connecting the great internal com- 
merce for which they seem to have been chiefly designed, 
with that of the external world, and in just that direc- 
tion which serves at once our needy section, the New 
England States, as also dependent Europe. At the 
same time it relieves our field of abundance from the 
embarrassing danger of being excluded from foreign 
markets by a blockade of that great thoroughfare which 
leads to the gulf; thereby saving our nation from the 
ruinous disaster of having her richest states which 
occupy this vast interior, coerced into measures dis- 
honorable and disloyal. 

What a display of foresight, of infinite wisdom and 
comprehensive design in the Creator, was the completion 
of a plan whereby the centre of this broad field of su- 
perlative richness is approached by the navigable waters 
of the only two grand highways of internal commerce, 
essentially opposite in character, flowing in different 
directions to the ocean, through countries and climates 
peculiarly unlike, to people of adverse tastes and char- 
acteristics and of dissimilar pursuits, while to the world 
the same ends are served, the same wants supplied ! 

Thus, foreign nations are placed in an attitude of 
comparative indifference, and "stand in pause," which 
is to us the best guarantee of neutrality, when the inhar- 
monious views and discordant tastes, incident to varying 
conditions, threaten a disruption between those sections 
which hold the extremes of these commercial outlets ; — 
to be reconciled only through their means by the arbi- 



30 COSMONICS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

tration of either interest or enforcement held amply in 
reserve around the points of their approximation. 

The Great Interior will never yield her right of free 
access to the ocean by either route ; and in order to 
maintain it, there must be political union between her- 
self and the sections through which they pass. She 
cannot divide herself nor can she sustain harmonious 
relations with both of them unless they are on terms of 
peace with each other. Their differences at times may 
culminate in open conflict, as has already happened, but 
the success of either will depend upon the Great Centre. 
To whichever side she gives her support, the other 
must succumb. 

" It is no longer pertinent for a little northerner or 
a little southerner to talk about dividing this Union. 
Great westerners spring to their feet in predominating 
millions crying, — ' No, you shall not divide.' " Whether 
in political contests or military strife, this will be the 
result between the northern and the southern or the 
Atlantic and Pacific, or any border section with another. 
Hence, the Upper Mississippi Valley holds in her giant 
grasp the destiny of this nation, and through it the 
liberties of mankind. She may be appropriately styled : 
The valley of decision. 

Heaven grant that her vigilance may be unceasing, her 
discernment acute, her patriotism ardent, her decisions 
right, her courage firm, her actions prompt — that with 
faith inflexible, hope eternal, and charity universal, her 
arm may be ever ready to strike in defense of the Union, 
the Union's flag, and equality before the law. 



COSMONICS OF THE UNITED STATES. 31 

It is remarkable that we have no transverse ranges of 
mountains ; but that a valley of uninterrupted fertility 
stretches from the Arctic Circle nearly to the Tropic 
of Cancer, showing nature's plan for free intercourse 
between latitudes throughout the whole length of the 
continent. Nowhere has she marked out national divi- 
sions within our continental borders or furnished cause 
for political separations. 

Unlike the physical structure of Asia and Europe 
where mountain ranges, river-courses, extensive deserts 
and inland seas, tend to distribute rather than concen- 
trate ; where, as a natural sequence, division rather than 
union is made the rule with states; our mountain ranges 
— which in other positions might serve as excuses, — are 
distributed in lines so near the coast that the exterior 
lands which stretch along their base, like the outer courts 
of a great temple, are proportionately so narrow, that 
notwithstanding their amplitude because of great length, 
they are nowhere proportioned, in no wise situated, nor 
in any respect so adapted as to render in any portion of 
them a separate government practicable. Their expo- 
sure without and dependency within, make necessity a 
virtue which compels to the very course where interest 
invites. But between the interior and exterior this 
dependency is mutual, this necessity reciprocal, this in- 
terest equal. In means of subsistence and capacities of 
inhabitation, they compare so remarkably that they may 
be said to be about equal in area and balanced in power. 

The great central section, abounding in resources of 
food and other elements of strength, is really the breast 



32 COSMONICS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

of the continent — the source of life and nourishment to 
the entire system — the great depurating region where 
the vital currents are renewed and sent to the exterior, 
bearing the materials which build the tissues in every 
part. But it is not therefore independent of the margin 
by which it is environed, any more than the vital region 
of the animal body is independent of its integuments 
and limbs. The life of one depends upon the vitality 
of the other. Notwithstanding that the fountains of 
strength are contained within, the extremities supply 
indispensable conditions of health and means -of defense. 

This is not a union of separate bodies, but of the 
members of one body wherein each is a part of the 
whole, and that whole not yet complete. In common 
with all existence under organic law, and with that 
instinct which is universal, — "Self-preservation" in our 
national economy "is the first law of nature," and is 
likely always to be well observed. No member of the 
body can be spared without inconvenience, nor lost 
without an effort to save. 

To cripple a member is to cripple the man. To 
weaken a state is to enfeeble the nation. A diseased 
member makes the body sick. Even so a morbid action 
affects the body politic. Let any diseased portion there- 
fore receive immediate attention and be treated with a 
decisive remedy, however severe. Likewise, let care be 
taken to preserve a healthy action in every part, and 
equal justice to all be the cement of our Union. 

"AH are but parts ot one stupendous whole," 
The Continent its body ia, and ritjht the soul. 



COSMONICS OF THE UNITED STATES. 33 

This inter-dependence is the strong-hold of our inde- 
pendence — a perpetual compact, more binding than any 
that comes of Congress or Constitution, and framed by 
the hand of nature from the foundation of the world. 
Thus we see that as nature has wrought circumstances 
without, so has she supplied conditions within, which 
relieves us from the necessity of supporting large stand- 
ing armies — a dangerous expense so common among 
other nations. 

As our land was created without natural divisions, 
as our mountain barriers are widely apart and our great 
waters near and united; so are prejudices dispersed 
while the blood of all races mingles to form a composite 
nation. Intercourse obliterates feuds until race is lost 
in the river of love, while, to secure this desirable end, 
Science and Art are joined with nature in bringing 
remotest parts comparatively near through the spanning 
of time and space by railroad and telegraph. 

A profound belief in the Divine-purpose theory of 
human progress, and its highest perfection to be wrought 
out under the auspices of enlightened liberty, on a field 
so well formed for national unity and political harmony 
as this continent affords, is strongly supported by the 
fact that, supervening upon the age in which scientific 
invention was nursed through the infancy of its exis- 
tence into that age of adolescence when it could take 
enterprise by the hand and lead it out from the thral- 
dom of despair into the wilderness of hope, — making, 
not only the movement of the pioneer possible, but his 
mission practicable, — came the occupation and advances 



34 COSMONICS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

which, by strides prodigious and perilous, have carried 
us onward with amazing swiftness through successive 
stages of revolution and evolution, where freedom has 
moved against obstructions in every form, away from 
the ignorance and oppression of darker ages, toward 
the day of light and reign of right in the era of uni- 
versal amelioration. 

" We are living, we are moving, 
In a grand and awful time." 



The political geography of our country is so wisely 
created, so admirably arranged, so well proportioned ; 
its parts so evenly adjusted and equally poised, that our 
government, like a perfectly constructed machine, only 
needs proper care in order to run without friction or 
the application of force. 

If there is any truth in the theory that people are 
"governed best when governed least," this country is cer- 
tainly adapted to its practical demonstration. When 
properly managed, the machinery is self-lubricating and 
is automatic in all of its necessary changes. "With its 
demands supplied and the products taken care of, there 
will be no need of further attention than to see that its 
bearings are even and true, and that its wheels be not 
clogged by foreign matter. This is a duty which de- 
volves upon every American citizen, and consists of prac- 
tical and constant attention to the virtue of "eternal 

VIGILANCE — THE PRICE OF LIBERTY." 

Every true American, whether he be such from ne- 



COSMONICS OF THE UNITED STATES. 35 

cessity or choice, will guard with jealous care against 
the aggressions of foreign powers, the aping of foreign 
aristocracy, the rise of social caste, or the insidious 
teaching of dogmatic errors. 

The history of other nations and their dismember- 
ments are neither criteria nor cause for alarm with 
reference to us. With national origin, surrounding cir- 
cumstances, and internal conditions, all different, results 
cannot be the same. History may seem to have repeated 
itself when founded upon similar facts. But events of 
the Old World, under the operations of slow intelligence 
and a sluggish commerce, under ancient systems of arbi- 
trary rule and other circumstances widely different from 
these which attend and surround us, furnish no good 
grounds for dismal apprehensions among enlightened 
Americans who act under free auspices; where sym- 
pathy and interest are inseparable, where unity is 
fostered by every tendency of creative nature and con- 
structive art, and where every advance in our develop- 
ment strengthens the bands that have grown with our 
growth from infancy. 

There are those who differ from this view. Their 
ideas may be tainted by contact with those who neither 
believe in a permanent union between these states, nor 
wish for it; who oppose nationality and prefer con- 
federation, and may answer these views by declaring 
that several governments will yet require several na- 
tional capitals. 

Time spent in contemplating such a result is abso- 
lutely lost. It is a contingency no more to be appre- 



36 COSMONICS OP THE UNITED STATES. 

hended than is a reversal of the earth's poles; or, by 
the loss of gravity, its bursting asunder and separation 
into several smaller worlds. 

As the structure of the globe and the correlation of 
forces by which its operations are governed, hold it in 
position and maintain its concrete form, so is the per- 
manency of our national union assured and in keeping 
with the divine order of its constitution. In the earth 
there may be quakings and volcanic eruptions, threaten- 
ing to destroy its form or annihilate its existence ; tor- 
nadoes may lay waste the creations of years ; but the 
internal forces will subside, the storms will pass by, 
equilibrium be restored, and our planet still remain con- 
stant in its course and its relation to the universe. 

So, also, there may be quakings and upheavals in our 
body politic, exciting fear, and even despair, among the 
faithless. In the disturbance many may be buried from 
sio-ht. or lost to remembrance : but calm in confidence 
and firm in faith, let us not forget that the most valued 
features of our government, the strongest bonds of our 
union, and the best guarantees of perpetual freedom, are 
of volcanic origin, as instanced by the Declaration of 
Independence, the Proclamation of Emancipation, and 
the latest amendments to the Constitution. 

The Tree of Liberty becomes more firmly rooted by 
resisting the winds that would destroy it. Being in- 
digenous to American soil it will thrive in spite of 
storms or noxious plants. The tempests that beat about 
our Ship of State serve to keep the crew alert and her 
rigging in trim. 



COSMONICS OF THE UNITED STATES. 37 

Said an eminent authority accredited with wisdom, 
"Let me make the ballads of a nation, and I care not 
who makes its laws." 

Longfellow's "Launching of the Ship" has done more 
to inspire faith in the permanency of our Union than 
any oration or enactment in our history. That portion 
addressed to our country as the " Ship of State " should 
be committed to memory and often repeated by every 
young American. 

"Thou too, sail on, O Ship of State ! 
Sail on, O Union, strong and great ! 
Humanity with all its fears, 
With all its hopes of future years, 
Is hanging breathless on thy fate ! 
We know what Master laid thy keel, 
What Workman wrought thy ribs of steel, 
Who made each mast, and sail, and rope, 
What anvils rang, what hammers beat, 
In what a forge and what a heat 
Were shaped the anchors of thy hope ! 
Fear not each sudden sound and shock, 
'Tis of the wave and not the rock ; 
'Tis but the flapping of the sail, 
And not a rent made by the gale ! 
In spite of rock and tempest's roar, 
In spite of false lights on the shore, 
Sail on, nor fear to breast the sea ! 
Our hearts, our hopes, are all with thee, 
Our hearts, our hopes, our prayers, our tears, 
Our faith triumphant o'er our fears, 
Are all with thee, — are all with thee ! " 



38 COSMONICS OP THE UNITED STATES. 



LECTURE II. 

New England, with characteristic ingenuity, energy 
and industry, projecting her enterprise and infusing her 
spjrit into every portion of our domain, elevating the 
sphere and directing the forces of the other colonies and 
states, and stamping her individuality upon every fea- 
ture of material progress, has made the designation of 
"Yankee' a synonym for genius. 

With her growing wealth and permanent character, 
acquiring stability from other populous sections which 
she has nursed into existence and fostered through 
adolescence, she is still to increase in positive strength, 
but is to fall behind in relative importance. Her seats 
of learning and repositories of literary and scientific 
wealth, her accumulations of moneyed capital and facili- 
ties for marine commerce, her history and her zeal, 
will never permit her to sink in practical value to 
the country, be lost to the memory and gratitude of a 
free people, nor to darken the annals of true heroism. 
Respect for her departed heroes and love for her institu- 
tions, are not less permanent than the granite which 
underlies her soil. But she is too gracious to be bigoted, 
too patriotic to be partisan, too cosmopolitan to be illib- 
eral. Rejoicing in generous rivalry, she not only con- 
fesses the merits of other sections, but is sufficiently 
shrewd and enterprising to participate in the benefits 
arising from their prosperity by linking her fortunes 
with theirs as the best guarantee of her own security. 

Our safety is in the soil and those who direct its 



COSMONICS OF THE UNITED STATES. 39 

tillage. Mechanical, manufacturing, and commercial 
minds, are fuller of schemes and projects. They have 
more energy, but less stability, usually, than those of 
agriculturists. Had we been limited to the narrow area 
of the original thirteen states, the preponderance of a 
commercial spirit would, probably, have ruined us ; but 
happily the maritime coast around the little East, as 
extended as it may appear, is vastly exceeded by the 
widening domain of agriculture which assures the supply 
of our food and the perpetuity of our national existence. 

The broad area and productive soil of New York 
with her independent population and political strength, 
may never diminish in any of the qualities which 
make her great ; but she must, ere long, cease to be the 
Empire State, for a greater than she is coming. 

Pennsylvania, the seat of mining and manufacturing 
industry, and figuratively known as the "Key Stone," 
is also destined to lose her now merited superiority ; for, 
while she will remain the center of the same arch of 
which she has so long been a portion, that arch is but an 
inverted segment of the great circle which is rapidly 
forming ; and Pennsylvania's advantage, instead of 
resting in her position of keystone, will consist more 
in her nearness to the hub or axis of a great eccentrical 
disk (or wheel) of states. Our circuit is widening and 
filling, and the change is transforming us from the partial 
to the complete, where we shall no longer be one- 
sided in character, but a perfect and well-balanced whole. 

Maryland and Virginia, with their political advantage 
of contiguity to the Capital are, for some time to come, 



40 COSHONICS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

destined to remain in place though not in power as they 
have been. The power no longer held, the place must 
also be yielded ; and the states remain, though at a wide 
remove from the seat of government which is eventually 
to be transferred from the lap where presidents have 
been nursed, to a soil where, if it be less "sacred" they 
are of more indigenous growth, and from whence a 
grateful people will make pilgrimages to the then anti- 
quated capital, as to a shrine, and renew their patriotic 
fire in doing honor to the name there perpetuated in 
memorative art. 

Centrality of location for our national capital, if not 
essential, is destined to become an important factor of 
our integrity as a Union. The verdict may not go 
forth, but a voice that cannot be stilled will be heard at 
the birth of the twentieth century. 

The Carolinas and their sisters of the gulf, with irre- 
trievable loss of prestige, have reached their lowest 
depth in the movement which, instead of secession, 
proved to be a means of progression. In climate, pro- 
ductions and perennial commerce through uncongealed 
rivers and harbors, with a seaboard of vast extent, they 
possess many elements of greatness. But while these 
elements will be utilized and that greatness reached, 
their relative power never can be greater than at present. 
They have many sources of wealth and of pleasure 
which, with just and liberal administrations of State 
governments, will bring to them great accessions of 
population, and hence of political strength; but during 
this transition (which, because of unconquered pre- 



COSMONICS OF THE UNITED STATES. 41 

judices, will be slow,) the more rapid growth of other 
sections will so precede the South in development, that 
her former supremacy will never be reached, notwith- 
standing the probable acquisition of a part or all of 
Mexico; for neither are these nor the adjacent territories 
lying in the latitudes of the Gulf States, adapted to the 
density of population which will gather along the more 
northern belts. 

The zone which embraces Arizona with all of its 
grazing and mining wealth, can never keep pace with 
the more invigorating climate of our northwestern 
border. The cattle-herds and cotton-harvests of Texas, 
with resources vast in proportion as her immense area, 
may bring to her wealth adequate for an empire, and 
fill with prosperous people several future states within 
her present boundary. Mexico may add its mineral 
mountains peopled with miners and men of all occupa- 
tions incident to that tropical and fruitful member of 
the realm ; but as strong a limb of this realm as Mexico 
may become, it can never be more than a limb. 



No thinking mind with a moderate degree of fore- 
sight can entertain a reasonable doubt that the Pacific 
Slope has before it a career of surpassing grandeur. 
Its various minerals and diversified vegetation, rich in 
abundance, and meeting every want, correspond with 
the wealth of India and other countries whose shores 
are laved by the same ocean ; and whose many millions 
of toiling inhabitants, with acknowledged skill in the 
production of beautiful and costly fabrics, as also many 



42 COSMONICS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

other luxuries of life, will yet find their readiest access 
to the markets of the world through its golden gates. 
It is not chimerical to say that the foreign trade of this 
vast seaboard may yet rival that of the Atlantic coast, 
and that the population and wealth of our whole 
country to-day, does not, by several times its aggregate, 
equal the coming realities of this land where Empire in 
its westward march, will pause and gather strength for 
vaster strides than she has yet achieved. 

To the West it was for a long time westward ; but to 
the East it is now eastward, and therefore becomes the 
source of wisdom to peoples who have persistently shut 
their eyes against the light, because it came in an un- 
natural direction, — from the West. Hence, from the 
eastern shore of the world's grandest ocean must radiate 
that light which is to work out the conversion of the 
ancient East, "whose yellow races remain still in the 
"dawn, — the sun of civilization never having risen suf- 
"ficiently high above them to give vital growth to any 
"product they have either invented or received." 

Prejudices are the most formidable obstacles to pro- 
gress, and with the growth of centuries become too 
deeply rooted for easy dislodgment. 

Throughout historic time, the West where light is 
daily seen to vanish, has been regarded with distrust and 
even contempt, as the intellectual Nazareth from which 
no good can come. Light breaks in the East, and men 
taught by nature, have learned to look for it only in the 
direction of the rising sun. Thus the gates of China and 
Japan were barred against foreign intercourse and inno- 



COSMONICS OF THE UNITED STATES. 43 

vations until they beheld upon our western shores the 
gleams of a superior civilization.* 

With their wide range of latitudes suited to immi- 
grants from every portion of the globe, and with their 
immense variety of resources, the Pacific States are 
destined to rival in power and importance those of the 
Atlantic slope, notwithstanding the great advantages 
possessed by the latter in time and precedent. These 
two sections of our country are, by virtue of their anti- 
podal relations to each other, so diverse in their essential 
aspects, characteristics, and relations, that they never can 
become injurious competitors. Their features of dis- 
similarity embrace many facts other than peculiarities of 
climate and resources. 

As opposite poles of a battery possessing similar 
qualities and equivalent powers — but, for the reason that 
the current while moving in the same general, takes 
opposite relative directions, — are really dissimilar with 
functions radically different, so are the relations of the 
Atlantic and Pacific States. Facing in opposite direc- 
tions, their mission is as diverse as their origin was 
unlike. The first was colonized by Christian pilgrims 
driven by persecution from a cruel country across an 



*The first American expedition, under Commodore Perry, U. S. 
N., reached Yeddo in July, 1853. By his determined boldness, he 
induced the Japanese government to change its policy of exclusion 
which, up to that time had continued for hundreds of years. On 
March 23d, of the following year, a treaty of commerce was con- 
cluded between the United States and Japan. This was the first 
Btep in her progress which is one of the marvels of the nineteenth 
century. 



44 COSMONICS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

ocean waste to an inhospitable and repellant shore, to 
suffer that liberty might survive. The other was occu- 
pied by speculative adventurers drawn from homes 
of hospitality and religious freedom, over a continent 
abounding in beauty, to an inviting clime in search of 
wealth. Their incentives were, on the one hand, a 
more liberal religious faith ; on the other, the greed of 
gold. If motive is a criterion of character, and if a 
state is moulded by its original occupants, it is not 
difficult to see in these relations, a cause of social con- 
trast as wide as the longitudes between Massachusetts 
and California. 

One, after long experiences in severe hardship and 
protracted toil, secured by force, through a terrible and 
revolutionary conflict, a recognized independence. The 
other, under the nurturing care of that independence, 
springs into existence as if by magic, and startles the 
world with its civilized presence. One lives in retro- 
spect, the other in prospect. One meditates on the past, 
the other prognosticates the future. While the people 
of one section are seeking for authentic traces of their 
origin, those of the other are forecasting their destiny. 
The one in fear and self-defense fought to repel inva- 
sion ; the other in hope, with aggressive spirit, will 
carry conquest abroad. What one achieved by war, the 
other will accomplish by peace; — civil and religious 
liberty. 

One sees across the water eastward in the light of 
history and present intercourse, a kindred people similar 
in appearance and habits, and allied by paternity, sym- 



COSMONICS OF THE UNITED STATES. 45 

pathy, and common interest. The other looks westward 
beyond the sea and beholds a race strange and dissimilar 
in every aspect of their natures; their complexion, cloth- 
ing, habits, and religious faiths, all different; scarcely 
anything to indicate a common humanity. One beholds 
in the East the source of her civilization, the other dis- 
covers in the West the fields of her mission in conveying 
that civilization to other races. 

Having alluded to the effect of character upon country, 
it may be well to glance at some of the reflex influences 
of country upon character, and observe how opposite 
are the climatic and other agencies at work on the people 
of the two respective sections under consideration. The 
one beholds the coming of the orb of day across the 
heaving billows of the tempestuous Atlantic ; the other 
watches the departure of its lingering beams upon the 
placid waters of the calm Pacific. By reason of their 
opposite inclines, one slope receives the sun's most direct 
rays in the morning, the other in the latter part of the 
day. The prevailing winds blow from the West. On 
the Pacific coast they come fresh from ocean's widest 
waste, unladen with either the miasma of swamps, the 
balm of prairie flowers or of inland forests. Reverse 
influences operate in our eastern section under the 
same western breezes. Winds are powerful modifiers of 
health, and hence, of disposition. Apparently slight 
causes, such as observations and occurrences, if constant 
and continuous will, in the course of a few generations, 
perceptibly crystallize character. 

The aspects of a country with its forests, coasts, 



46 COSMONICS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

direction of winds, variety of weather in different sea- 
sons, &g., all make conditions which in these portions of 
our country not only show present opposing aspects of 
existence, but in course of time will show how condi- 
tions create qualities. Even race distinction is in large 
measure, an outgrowth of the above named and other 
modifying influences. Peculiarities originating in he- 
reditary transmission, though greatly diversified in a 
heterogeneous population will, under the constant and 
long continued operation of like causes, by mixture of 
races and fixedness of habitation, produce characteristics 
which go to make up a class. 

Toil, privation, freedom, and faith, have, in a few gen- 
erations, given to the energetic Yankee, lineaments of 
character which denote his nativity and, in a measure, 
decide his destiny. We may readily suppose that 
marked distinctions between him and the inhabitants 
of the Pacific shores, three thousand miles distant, will 
exist a hundred years hence, notwithstanding the facili- 
ties for ready intelligence and rapid intercourse, which 
will be afforded by greatly improved methods having a 
tendency to universalize mankind, and render it more 
homogeneous. 

The people of that time, living on the western slope 
of the continent, representing a larger number of na- 
tionalities and inheriting a greater variety of ancestral 
proclivities than any other country on the globe, will 
have taken up their abode there from similarity of 
choice, and thus by the quick process of natural selec- 
tion will have brought together homogeneous tastes with 



COSMONICS OF THE UNITED STATES. 47 

diversified faculties existing in different types. This 
will give like peculiarities, already vital enough to 
liave inserted themselves into widely varying natures, 
an opportunity under circumstances of more vigorous 
growth, to develop into traits through the slower process 
of generation. Thereby a mixture of races, with other 
modifying causes growing out of contingencies unmen- 
tioncd here, will result in the creation of characters new 
and unique. What social, political, and commercial 
peculiarities are to be evolved from the conditions aird 
circumstances which surround these people, we leave 
chiefly to the speculative conjectures of ethnological and 
anthropological science. 

We may observe, however, that as labor liberally 
rewarded is promotive of patriotism and purity ; as 
industry and its incentives are accompanied by honesty 
and sobriety, and lead away from the vices which stinted 
compensation or opulent idleness always breeds; as 
arbitrary and oppressive forms of government produce 
selfish and domineering dispositions in the governed ; as 
circumscribed situations contract men's views and narrow 
their minds, whereas generous surroundings foster liber- 
ality of thought and conduct ; as beauty beheld and 
enjoyments hoped for, beget happy dispositions and 
refined manners ; — the fact that the Pacific States 
were originated and organized by an industrious and 
enterprising people, that their labor is bountifully re- 
warded by the generous earth, that the temper is softened 
and health invigorated by a mild and salubrious climate 
where pleasing prospects and a hopeful future combine 



48 COSMONICS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

to modify the manners of men, inspiring them with lofty 
ambition and love of country; is a strong intimation 
that generosity, integrity, and patriotism, will there be 
accompanied by diversified capacities and culminate in 
the grandest accomplishments. 

With this brief allusion to the East, South, and West, 
to all of which we shall again recur, let us proceed to 
say a few words concerning the extensive North. 



Stretching away into the regions of perpetual snow 
there lies between scarcely habitable latitudes and our 
preseut boundary, immense fields of latent wealth in 
forests of timber, mines of ore, and fertile soil, awaiting 
the enterprise of pioneers. 

Protected by its own vastitude from pillage, it will in 
due time, by the hand of energy and the application of 
skill, respond to the wants of a great commerce ; and in 
yielding up its wealth, this immense region will enrich . 
itself in turn by the acquisition of a hardy and indus- 
trious population. A howling wilderness will thus be 
converted into the haunts of civilization, and a large 
portion of its virgin soil be made to bring forth in 
abundance. 

It may here be asked : What have we to do with 
foreign possessions in estimating the magnitude of our 
own country and the future of its people? We answer 
that this is a prognostication founded upon reasonable 
conclusions which are, that, — Alaska being already ours, 
it remains simply a question of time when the entire 
Dominio?i of Canada will belong to the United Stales. 



COSMONTCS OP THE UNITED STATES. 49 

Until this be accomplished, our country is unbalanced 
and incomplete. Without Mexico we still have a 
southern slope, and hence a southern section. Not 
so on the north without British America. As now 
bounded, the United States has no northern slope, and 
practically no northern section. This situation will not 
be permitted to long continue, and the order of our 
extension will be to annex, first that portion of the con- 
tinent which will unite portions now separated — Alaska 
and the States — obliterate the longest unnatural bound- 
ary, and bring into the family our nearest kindred 
speaking the same language. 

But so far as it affects commercial development, the 
strength of our argument does not depend upon the 
acquisition of territory ; for, colonization and settlement 
under auspices of whatever government, are sure to take 
place ; and the fruits of industry by a hardy and thrifty 
population inhabiting this region and numbering many 
millions, are to become tributary to our commerce. 
While politically separated, their supplies must largely 
be drawn from us, and we shall take in exchange their 
products for either consumption or export. Even 
what they may send direct to foreign markets, whether 
through our channels of transportation or otherwise, will 
bring from abroad money to be paid for the necessaries 
and comforts of life which we shall in a large measure 
furnish. Hence, whether belonging to our government 
or not, this vast region is to become directly tributary 
to the wealth of our great cities. It has an immense — 
and as yet unmeasured — capacity for inhabitation. 
4 



50 COSMONICS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

Professor Blodgett, in his standard work on clima- 
tology of the United States, says of the Northwest: 
"The assertion may, at first, appear unwarranted, but it 
"is demonstrable that an area not inferior in size to the 
"whole of the United States east of the Mississippi, lies 
"west of the 98th meridian, and above the 43d parallel, 
" which is perfectly adapted to the fullest occupation by 
" cultivated nations." 

We may go still farther and suppose the population 
northward to be limited within our present boundary, 
(which cannot be the case, as it is not even now); we 
yet have in our northern frontier of states and terri- 
tories the elements of material wealth and political 
strength, exceeding those in the corresponding belt upon 
our southern border, notwithstanding the truth of what, 
we have just said concerning the latter; for, even in the 
favorable portions southward, the inhabitants largely 
pursue pastoral occupations which do not so crowd the 
country with toilers, as the raising of cereals and other 
products requiring the nicer operations of husbandry. 
These are more generally the adaptations of the North- 
ern States as also the people who settle in them, and call 
for those industries to which only a thrifty and prolific 
population is suited. 

Men in their migrations incline to their accustomed 
latitudes or follow their native climates as indicated by 
isothermal lines. Also, whether it be from a natural 
perverseness in human nature, or because of the magnifi- 
cent qualities required to overcome obstacles, the paradox 
presents itself of man continually moving against the 



COSMONICS OF THE UNITED STATES. 51 

currents of nature ; albeit, his sympathies and affec- 
tions flow in the opposite direction, and with these cur- 
rents instead of against them. Affections linger with the 
scenes we have left in our aspirations after higher bene- 
fits. As the earth moves eastward, man migrates west- 
ward. The wind blows mostly towards the East and 
man meets it in his royal march. Settlement usually 
begins near the mouths of rivers and advances towards 
their sources. Thus it is traveling against the current 
of the Missouri River to meet the tide coming up the 
Columbia from its mouth and the region of Puget Sound. 

Accordingly, in the onsweeping flood of settlers occu- 
pying our vast area ; soon after passing the Great Lakes 
in its westward course, " The course of Empire takes its 
way " northward and, hazardous as the prediction may 
seem, it is highly probable that the colonization and 
cultivation of these northern states and territories, 
stretching from the Lakes to the Pacific, will in a few 
decades, surpass in numerical and political importance 
the entire Gulf states of the South. 

Meanwhile, our south-western territory will be un- 
dergoing similar development, but less rapidly. The 
belt of country stretching from Arkansas westward, 
will never become so thickly peopled as that to the 
northwest, nor will the inhabitants of our southern lati- 
tudes ever be of so much value to commerce as an equal 
number in the northern where food and fabrics are more 
extensively consumed, and all materials of comfort and 
luxury in greater demand. It is here that we find the 
human race more industrious, frugal and prolific, and 



52 COSMONICS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

possessed of more general intelligence combined with 
greater physical strength and powers of endurance. It 
is from the higher latitudes that must come the regenera- 
tion rendered necessary by the degeneracy contingent 
upon a nearness to torrid climes. History proves that 
"the rugged North has always redeemed the effete 
South, and by a succession of such amalgamations, se- 
cured to humanity perpetual improvement." While 
this is obviously true in a general sense according to 
both history and reason as applied to all countries, it 
is especially true as a scientific fact with reference to 
this vast northwestern region which possesses the ad- 
vantageous combination of an elevated and invigorating 
latitude with a comparatively mild climate^ — hence pre- 
senting unusual attractions. 

The force of these truths must not be allowed to 
override the importance nor eclipse the expectation of 
this continent becoming a political unity. It is there- 
fore proper in calculating our commercial centres, to 
observe our possible growth in all directions. East or 
West we can go no farther. Towards the South our 
limit is also reached except we acquire the West India 
Islands or annex Mexico and lengthen our narrowing 
boundary to the Isthmus of Panama. 

The North, however, furnishes inhabitable area several 
times the capacity of Mexico. Canada already contains 
half as many people. Between Lake Superior and 
Alaska stretches a region of country longer than to the 
farthest point of the United States in any southern 
direction, while to the farthest points of Alaska, the 



COSMONICS OF THE UNITED STATES. 53 

distance is greater than to Lake Nicaragua, or the re- 
motest island of the Antilles. A considerable distance 
west from Lake Superior is the city of Winnipeg. A 
radius from this point to the eastern boundary of Alaska 
would reach in the opposite direction to the southern 
extremity of Florida. Extend this radius to the western 
points of Alaska and the described circle embraces 
Greenland, Hayti, and a portion of Lake Nicaragua 
in Central America. A line from the extreme point of 
Florida to the northern shore of Alaska passes through 
Rock Island, St. Paul, Winnipeg, the center of Great 
Slave Lake and the northern extremity of profitable 
wheat culture. A line from the same south-eastern 
point to the southern shore of Alaska, passes near St. 
Louis, through Omaha, and is the axis of the Missouri 
River, — being the center line lengthwise of its great 
valley, as the ninetieth meridian is of the Mississippi. 
These lines and circles will help to form an idea of 
central points on the Continent, and give a comprehen- 
sive appreciation of our great possibilities as a nation.* 

Great Slave Lake lies considerably above the 60th 
parallel which runs through Southern Alaska, and the 
northern limit of wheat production is believed to extend 
beyond the lake, in longitude 115, while the same limit 
falls below the 50th parallel in longitude 75, on the 
eastern side of the continent, near the mouth of St. 
Lawrence River, not far above the state of Maine. f 

This north-westward course of climates or Isothermal 
Belts, indicates the direction of the axis of intensity in 

* See Chart A. f See Chart B. 



54 COSMONICS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

population, when the country becomes thoroughly settled. 
This axis, extending from the Atlantic to the Pacific, 
would be somewhat influenced in its direction by the 
annexation of Mexico, should such an event occur before 
the settlement of British America and its addition to 
our domain. The incorporation of islands to the south- 
east, would not alter the direction of the axis, although 
it would slightly act as a counterpoise to the North 
West in locating our geographical centre and centre of 
population. 

If, like Florida, they were literally joined to the main- 
land, their influence would be more. As political 
adjuncts merely their weight would be less, because 
distributed from New York to New Orleans in their 
intercourse and commercial relations. 

Like the four seasons, opposite in character yet com- 
plete in consecution, without abrupt transition of any 
one into another, the four sections of our future country 
as here noticed, are distinctly marked by diverse char- 
acteristics, — yet, without lines of separation they present 
that diversity in unity so necessary to completeness, and 
furnish conditions which afford the supply of every 
want and the gratification of every taste. 

In magnitude, each division is ample for an empire 
under ancient regime, with a choice of many products 
and means of independence. How grand then will be 
the aggregate when peopled and thoroughly developed ! 
Survey its dimensions, estimate its capabilities, — and our 
minds are dazed with the splendor of its prospective 
magnificence ! 



COSMONICS OF THE UNITED STATES. 55 

The contrasted features of the East and the West 
have been mentioned. The South and the North pos- 
sess differences still more distinctive, and so familiar 
that any extended notice of them is unnecessary here, 
being respectively characteristic of latitudes and climates 
known to be radically unlike. Their climatic differences 
are such that, so far as their productions and trade are 
concerned, they can never be brought into injurious 
competition with each other. Nature has settled that 
question beyond all controversy. Normal conditions 
invite the greatest freedom of commerce between them, 
and being mutually beneficial should always receive 
encouragement. 

Upon the philosophic principle that unlikes attract, 
there should be the strongest affinity between the North 
and the South, and so there will be when through free- 
dom of intercourse the lingering prejudices* engendered 
by an unnatural and most arbitrary barrier shall have 
been thoroughly obliterated. Harmony of interests will 
yet overcome discordant sentiments, and mutual attach- 
ments will strengthen into a unison of feeling against 
which unprincipled demagogues shall not prevail. 

Of cold and heat, severity and mildness, vigor and 
lassitude, in the Northern and Southern belts respec- 
tively ; of perpetual frosts and perennial verdure we all 
have heard ; but a geographical and physical difference 
heretofore unobserved, exists in the fact that while habi- 
tation at the South is broken off by an abrupt and 



* Prejudice resulting from slavery and civil war. 



56 COSMONICS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

decided boundary, at the North it fades out indistinctly 
like a halo, where no line between its presence and 
absence is discernible. 

Thus we have presented to us all that at first appears 
necessary for a complete and elaborate picture with 
strong contrasts and slight variations, with distinct lines 
and delicate shadings, having every desirable variety of 
temperature, climate, and productions, so harmoniously 
blending that there is no place where a line of separa- 
tion can be fitly drawn. 

This great and comprehensive area composed of four 
grand divisions; the East, the South, the West, and the 
North ; forming a circuit replete with every essential for 
the highest conditions of civilized life, sufficient for the 
greatest pleasure and the loftiest pride ; yet constitutes 
but half of our splendid country, — the four limbs whose 
office it is to protect and serve the great body of which 
they form an essential, though not the •principal part. 



Having thus at some length dwelt upon the magni- 
tude and importance of the states and the territory 
which skirt our vast domain, occupying the eastern 
slope of the Appalachian Chain, the western incline of 
the Rocky Mountains, — including the Sierra Nevada 
and Cascade Ranges, the southern belt of perennial 
verdure and the alternating climates of the vigorous 
North, we now proceed to consider the magnitude, 
grandeur, and mission of that better half, — the great 
centre, — its character and career, its prospects and its 
powers. 



COSMONICS OF THE UNITED STATES. 57 

We will change the delineation and, without reference 
to points of compass, consider our country speculatively 
under two general heads or departments. Partially 
ignoring state boundaries and entirely disregarding the 
divisions or groups in which the states are usually 
arranged, let us generalize them according to the simi- 
larity of commercial positions; designating them as the 
frontier or border territory, and the interior or middle 
region. 

The one comprises those portions which lie along the 
exterior and through which the streams flow outward 
to the sea. The other embraces all that lies interior 
thereto — including the upper lake region, with those 
parts through which the rivers flow inward to that great 
central stream, the Mississippi — and from which three 
rivers flow outward, tri-secting the boundary at approxi- 
mately equi-distant points, as represented by discon- 
nected prongs of the letter Y (Y)> the upright portion 
of this letter representing the Mississippi, the right prong 
the St. Lawrence, and the left prong the Red River of 
the North. 

The line of demarkation which separates these two 
grand divisions of the continent, — not everywhere dis- 
tinct, but sufficiently definite for our purpose — may 
begin at the Falls of Niagara, and passing between the 
western head waters of the Susquehanna and the sources 
of the Ohio, follow the crest of the Allegheny Moun- 
tains along which streams flow to the East and the 
West respectively, until it reaches the 35th parallel. 
From this the drainage is northward through Tennessee 



58 COSMONICS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

to the Ohio River, and southward through the states 
of Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi, to the Gulf of 
Mexico. 

Pursuing this elevation and crossing the Mississippi, 
we may, for greater exactitude, deflect our course some- 
what to the southward or, for the sake of convenience, 
continue in the same general direction and keep approxi- 
mately near the head-waters of those rivers which flow 
through Texas into the Gulf, until we reach the Rocky 
Mountains in the eastern part of New Mexico, near 
Santa Fe. This brings us to the head-waters of the 
Red River and Rio Grande, where the line properly 
changes from East and West toward the North along the 
Rocky Ridge which sends its waters Eastward across the 
plains and westward to the Pacific Ocean. Following 
its deflexures and veerings which take a north-westerly 
course, we are brought to the sources of the Columbia 
River which flows to the Pacific Ocean, and of the 
Missouri and Saskatchewan whose waters flow south- 
ward and northward respectively, as also do other 
streams rising along the 49th parallel, from the vicinity 
of which they make for the Lakes or the Mississippi 
on the one hand, and for Hudson Bay and the Arctic 
Ocean on the other. 

This ridge, although not a mountain range, forms the 
natural boundary which we seek upon the North, as the 
35th parallel does upon the South. It extends east- 
ward between Hudson Bay and Lake Superior, and 
continuing, forms the northern boundary of Old Canada, a 
portion of which might be included within the region we 



COSMONICS OF THE UNITED STATES. 69 

are describing, but which, partly on account of the 
unnatural political situation, is left out, as we follow 
Rainy River and Lake, from Lake of the Woods 
through a chain of waters to the mouth of Pigeon River 
on or near the ninetieth meridian, and thence through 
the lakes, Superior, Huron, and Erie to the place of 
beginning at Niagara Falls. By this general outline is 
circumscribed what is known as the Great Basin or Mis- 
sissippi Valley and Upper Lake Region. [Chart B.] 

This is the thorax of the continent. The mountain 
ranges on either side are the rock-ribs within which will 
beat the great heart of the nation. Upon these broad 
areas will the heaving lungs indicate the nation's power. 
To and from this great reservoir will the currents of 
commerce come and go, purifying and building up the 
entire system. 

In this grand arena are to be enacted successive 
dramas which will unfold the mysteries of Providential 
Design concerning this Continent, this Nation, and 
Human Freedom. Here will finally stand revealed 
His purposes and plans which are developing in con- 
cealment, save as, by the correlation of events, they are 
flashed in fitful coruscations upon the mental vision — 
premonitive of the future ; the perfections and beauties 
of which, like the progress of the past and the glories 
of the present, are to be born amidst trial and trust, 
fear and faith, anxiety and expectation. 

The " Course of Empire " which has, from pre- 
historic time to the present, taken its way continually 
westward, is, with accelerated speed, moving to its cul- 



60 COSMONICS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

mination on .this continent, where it is collecting its 
forces and gathering strength for renewed efforts beyond 
the Pacific, while consummating its beauty and cen- 
tralizing its powers for the supreme sway of a perfect 
and universal civilization. Whether this is or is not 
the theatre of its final stand and ultimate victory — the 
seat of its crowning glory ; it is philosophically clear 
that, for centuries to come, here is to be the scene 
of intensest activity in the world's development; and 
henceforth, instead of military prowess being the regime, 
carrying conquest into other lands by force of arms, all 
nations are to be drawn hither under the auspices of 
peace and human fellowship. 

In view of the brilliant career before us, the destiny 
that awaits us, the responsibility that is upon us, and 
the high trust committed to our charge ; how important 
it becomes that we survey the field and observe its con- 
ditions, in order that we may so adapt our movements as 
to accomplish the best results, reap the greatest benefits 
from our labors and our investments, and thereby bring 
the possibilities of the future to a speedier realization. 

While every portion of our country possesses attrac- 
tive features, and each its peculiar advantages, sharing 
those which also belong to many others, — while every 
section and city afford opportunities for enterprise, and 
in every part may be found a profitable field for the 
exercise of genius, energy and skill ; it is clear beyond 
question, that some sections and localities are favored 
more than others; a few especially so, and one or two 
most of all ; so that in spite of all human efforts; popu- 



COSMONICS OF THE UNITED STATES. 61 

lation, power, wealth, and grandeur, will gravitate where 
Nature has so determined by having combined her 
resources in largest measure with the best facilities for 
their improvement by the assistance of Art. Upon the 
strength of these data, the more clearly we are enabled 
to estimate the respective and relative value of different 
localities, the less we shall be liable to suffer the disap- 
pointments and losses which follow mistakes. Herein 
the clearest foresight becomes the surest guarantee oj 
success. 

Based upon existing facts, what are the probabilities 
with reference to different portions of the country, and 
what localities have the strongest combination of ad- 
vantages, and are therefore destined to excel all others? 
In a few words we shall find a general and comprehen- 
sive answer, viz. : That region which is geographically 
most nearly central, possessing facilities for extensive and 
cheap transportation, and where the greatest number of 
people can easily be furnished with the necessaries, com- 
forts, and conveniences of life by either production or 
purchase. Health being one of the necessaries of life, 
must also be taken into account. 

If, then, these exist together in favorable combina- 
tion, the conditions of superiority are supplied ; for 
there will the human activities be developed in the 
highest degree ; there will science, education, and art best 
flourish ; there will Commerce most abound, and there 
will Law and Order most prevail, backed by the highest 
morals and fortified by the truest religion. 

Population brings commerce, and in turn is greatly 



62 COSMONICS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

increased by manufactories, and these make cities. North 
America is to have the largest cities in the world ; for 
here will be the most active and extensive commerce ac- 
companied by varied manufactures, all under direction of 
the highest intelligence, and supported by the strongest 
concentration of the widest and most liberal patronage. 

Our large cities are the homes of the wealthy. There 
capital concentrates and real estate attains its highest 
values. There and in close proximity, business of 
all kinds may flourish. By the great activity of 
large cities, towns and villages in the surrounding 
country are nursed into prosperity, creating an im- 
mense consuming population and giving the garden, 
the dairy, and the farm a ready market for all their 
products, and for much that must in remoter districts 
be wasted. Hence, tillers of the soil in common with 
others have an interest in this matter. 

The comparative merits of different sections, routes, 
and locations, we shall discuss in a somewhat general 
and disconnected way, showing the most favored areas, 
lines, and points for production, transportation, and trade. 

The great central basin of the interior being a com- 
paratively unbroken region, is thereby adapted for easy 
commercial and social intercourse. It also possesses the 
conditions of health and vigor, with a soil producing in 
abundance food of excellent quality and in great variety. 
Even now it furnishes subsistence for the inhabitants of 
many foreign countries, and under a high state of culti- 
vation would be capable of sustaining one half of the 
entire human family. 



COSMONICS OF THE UNITED STATES. 63 

This basin is a unit in both natural organization and 
civil interest, while every other section is one-sided. Of 
them it may be said that the interests, the policy, and the 
opinions of their inhabitants will always differ, and in 
opposite sections be diverse, as their rivers flow outward 
and away from one another into different oceans ; while 
here the tendency is to coalesce in feeling, thought, and 
action, like the streams whose waters mingle, bringing 
diversity into unity, variety into harmony, and their cur- 
rents into concurrents where their strength is combined 
for the common weal and to bless the borders through 
which they resistlessly move, bearing on their proud 
bosoms the elements of life fresh from their earthly 
origin, drawing and directing enterprise,— creating and 
controlling commerce. So will public opinion, fresh 
from the fountains where freedom is most indigenous, at 
the farthest remove from contact with despotic royalty, 
and pure as the prairie air which inspires it, flow in re- 
sistless force to sway sentiment and control conduct in 
sections negatively loyal, and thus prove how great is 
the power of a positive patriotism. 

In agricultural regions the sentiment of liberty and 
union most prevails — the spirit of our institutions most 
abounds. Away from the excitements of commercial 
strife, at the country school and in the open air, with 
abundant exercise and opportunity for thought, at the 
sources of subsistence, the ideas of practical self-govern- 
ment are most inculcated and find permanent lodgement. 
They arc there easily executed and resolutely defended. 
In these respects mining is akin to agriculture. Farmers 



64 COSMONICS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

and miners are co-workers with God in accomplishing 
the objects of creation. That these agencies of patriotic 
zeal, so widely distributed over the continent, should 
exist the most largely in our great central section and 
adjoining it, is an evidence of original design in favor of 
popular government and national unity. 

In this vast and fertile region the comforts of life by 
nature abound. It comprises one-half of our habitable 
territory, and is destined to contain a majority of the 
inhabitants of the whole continent when it shall become 
fully peopled. 

The accessibility to this from the marginal districts 
and all parts of the world, ensures the ease with which 
its external intercourse may be carried on and guarantees 
to its people the enjoyment of every luxury ; while its 
comparatively level and uninterrupted surface indicates 
at once the convenience of its habitation and of its local 
traffic. 

With no barriers to be surmounted, railroads are built 
in comparatively straight lines and easily made to con- 
verge at the most suitable points where, by uniting with 
the great natural highways of transportation, conditions 
are supplied for carrying on trade and effecting exchanges 
on the grandest scale. The most eligible of these 
points will unquestionably become centers of the greatest 
commercial activity known in the history of the world. 
Their localities we shall now proceed to consider. 



It is evident from experience as well as from reason, 
that trade will always accumulate along the principal 



COSMONICS OF THE UNITED STATES. 65 

highways of transportation, concentrating at those points 
which are best provided with the means of carrying on 
extensive operations. 

As already observed, the North American Continent 
is provided with only two great natural highways 
extending from the ocean to the interior. These are the 
Mississippi system and the chain of lakes which, by a 
happy coincidence, while opening in different directions 
and several thousand miles apart, approach each other 
near the middle of the Great Basin, as if by creative 
design to focalize the constituents of national strength 
where the elements of life in most bountiful supply are 
combined with devotion to national unity. Again, to 
fix as a certainty this concentration so essential to the 
perfection and permanence of the great plan, the easiest 
routes for railways and other artificial means of convey- 
ance are provided along these channels ; thus rendering 
impracticable the construction of rival thoroughfares for 
successfully diverting trade through other avenues to 
centralize it in other sections. 

But the mastership of this arrangement is displayed 
not less in preventing monopoly than in securing 
unity ; for, did these two natural highways join their 
waters with full navigable capacity at some point, 
or approach each other so closely as to render such 
connection feasible by art, we might expect to see at or 
near their juncture, a rising city controlling the naviga- 
tion of both, and destined to outstrip all others in 
immensity, magnificence, and power ; and, for lack of 
rivalry, grow into a formidable monopoly whose domi- 
5 



66 COSMONICS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

nation would be a menace to the country's prosperity, 
and even to freedom. But the wisdom as well as the 
love of the Creator is displayed in preventing such an 
evil, by supplying the conditions of successful emula- 
tion. These two channels are so unlike in character and 
their navigation requires such diverse conditions, that 
their floating craft can never be interchanged. Besides, 
their courses and the countries through which they pass 
are so widely different that no combination between them 
to unfavorably affect the interests of shippers can ever 
be consummated. Herein lies that protection which 
saves the producers of this region from outrages which 
carriers are disposed to inflict when not under the whole- 
some restraints of competition. These circumstances 
will always give to merchants and producers advantages 
greater than can be enjoyed on the same account in any 
other section of the country. 

The Mississippi River is figuratively styled the Father 
of Waters. It would be as appropriate to call our chain 
of Lakes the Mother of Waters. If these natural bodies 
can be wedded by the art of man, there will be a union 
without discord, and their commerce will be productive 
of innumerable blessings. The Atlantic Ocean, the 
Gulf of Mexico, and the Mississippi's myriad sources, 
would be united by a common band at a common centre. 
Another link between Lake Winnipeg and St. Paul, 
would bring Hudson Bay into the union. Through 
the Illinois River and Canal, the work is begun. Let 
this work be enlarged, and another construction made 
on a scale the most extensive possible on the shortest line 



COSMONICS OF THE UNITED STATES. 67 

practicable between the two great waters, and the foci 
will be complete. 

It is a circumstance which challenges our admiration, 
that the nearest approach of these two systems of navi- 
gation occurs in the same latitude, and at the head-center 
of lake transportation, just where most desired. Feasi- 
bility of construction and operation, is the only ques- 
tion to be decided concerning a Great Ship Canal from 
Chicago to the Mississippi River, connecting at points 
both above and below the rapids in latitude forty-one. 
It is a subject of national importance, and public demand 
for the work will soon be imperative, unless improve- 
ments by invention or discovery come to supersede 
present systems of transportation.* 

It will always be beyond the power of cities on one 
channel to ruinously interfere with the trade of those 
upon the other. It follows, therefore, that there is a per- 
manent demand for a great metropolis upon each, located 
as near the centers of production as is consistent with 
good harborage and landings, full depths of water, and 
convenient access to all parts of the navigable system. 

We shall now endeavor to fix upon the points which 
Nature has favored with these advantages. 

A survey of the grand river system will reveal to us 
many cities, villages, and towns, several of which have 

* Another Ship Canal from Lake Michigan to Lake Erie through 
Northern Indiana and Ohio, should be constructed, creating an 
almost direct water-way from Chicago to Toledo, Cleveland, and 
Buffalo. It would accomplish a great shortening of distance and 
saving of time, while it would serve to avoid many dangers on the 
lakes and the ice blockade at Mackinaw. 



68 COSMONICS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

aspired to supremacy and been given to much unwar- 
rantable boasting, while their egotism has been equaled 
only by their ignorance as shown in erroneous estimates 
of comparative importance and value, — proving to be 
true what we have said in the outset, that want of fore- 
sight generally leads to loss. 

The local importance of several of these places is 
considerable, but there is one commanding position 
which more than any other possesses the elements of 
commercial greatness. This could readily have been 
discovered by any person capable of thinking cos- 
monically upon the subject. It is necessarily an 
eligible site upon the main channel, as near as possi- 
ble to the centre of the great valley, in that portion 
which is ramified by the largest number of its chief 
navigable tributaries, and where the two longest of these, 
in opposite directions, furnish the greatest amount of 
commerce to and from the farthest lateral distances. All 
direct and cross transits are thereby given a common 
centre for supplies, storage, and exchange. 

The Missouri and Ohio Rivers are the two principal 
tributaries corresponding to our allusion. They drain 
the widest regions in the valley, and bear upon their 
bosoms vast quantities of merchandise, fuel, and food. 
They debouch into the Mississippi about midway of its 
length, and at points far enough apart to afford a select 
situation between them for the Emporium that is to com- 
mand the commerce of all three, throughout the pro- 
gressive future of our country. 

Not cosmonomy alone, but observation as well, estab- 



COSMONICS OP THE UNITED STATES. 69 

lishes a conviction that the majestic Mississippi does not, 
from its myriad sources to its mouth, lave one spot upon 
its banks where stands either at present or in prospect, a 
formidable rival of St. Louis. 

She is, in a geographical sense, approximately central ; 
as much so as the purpose she is to execute will permit. 
She is on the northern border of the space between the 
two tributaries mentioned, very near to the Missouri 
River, and is so near to the limits of navigation unob- 
structed by ice that she could not afford to change her 
latitude for any advantages to be gained in this respect. 
We shall allude to her again in this connection, and 
therefore leave her for the present, — turning our atten- 
tion to the Lakes and their chief city. 

Buffalo, Cleveland, Toledo, Detroit, Milwaukee and 
Chicago, all have had their aspirations and hopes, their 
depressions and doubts; and each in their turn have 
laid claim to prospective superiority. But the finger of 
fate will point out that which cosmonical fact now 
indicates — their destiny and comparative importance. 

One, only, can be supreme. The others may emulate, 
and feel a just pride in what they are; but the folly of 
attempting or claiming rivalry has passed into simple 
memory. Population and all other elements of great- 
ness in them combined, will soon be surpassed by her 
alone. It was but a narrow view that ever gave rise 
to the unwarrantable ambitions and groundless hopes 
which led to different conclusions. This " blindness to 
the future," however, was " kindly given," for high 
aims have spurred men to strong efforts and developed 



70 COSMONICS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

comparative indolence into positive activity, which has 
resulted in extensive benefits, — local as well as general. 
Each place in its turn, has been the rendezvous of 
immigration and the base of supplies for pioneering 
progress. 

Chicago stands at the head, and, notwithstanding the 
reputation for gasconade which she has received from 
jealous rivals, her splendor already shows that her boast- 
ing was not vain. She is as near the true centre as the 
great lakes will permit, and quite near enough for the 
general good. 

Chicago as Queen of the Lakes and St. Louis as 
Mistress of the Rivers, will always stand unrivalled, 
each upon its respective commercial waters, and the two 
finally upon the continent — the bases of magnificent 
operations, not merely along their particular channels, 
but eventually for the whole country. 

The traffic and travel which will ultimately unite 
these two cities by commerce and intercourse, is beyond 
the power of any common mind to estimate. The 
numerous lines of railway between them will all groan 
under the weight of business, while the channel by 
which Nature has indicated an improved water-way — a 
Ship Canal of the largest possible dimensions — for both 
transit and sanitary drainage, especially the drainage 
of Chicago — calls for the most liberal expenditure of 
money consistent with practicability and economy.* 



* Chicago seems to be situated for the greatest city on earth, and 
also to test man's engineering skill and power to overcome difficul- 
ties. A low, fiat plain with difficult drainage, a small sluggish creek 



COSMONICS OF THE UNITED STATES. 71 

Sufficiently near together to stimulate healthy com- 
petition, yet far enough apart to prevent possible 
consolidation, these two cities, constantly aroused into 
rivalry, are at a sufficient remove from the true centre, 
to prevent either from having an advantage over the 
other in geographical position, while their commerce, 
ample in resources and wide enough in extent for the 
highest laudable ambition, reaches to such a distance in 
opposite directions — each covering a different field — that, 
like the waters of which they are born and nursed, they 
are so diverse in the character of their trade as to be 
mutually secure against serious encroachments. 

Their influence will be commanding when united in 
a common cause, while each will guard with jealous care 
against undue political advantage or influence by the 
other. Contests for preferment in patronage by the 



dignified by the name of Chicago River forming an incipient 
harbor, and a broad lake frontage to the east, with a sand-bar 
obstructing the ready entrance and outlet of shipping, were the 
natural main features of the place. Many fortunes in hand have 
been lost by men who were glad to get rid of tracts and lots lying in 
a " miasmatic swamp," — " a mud bole." With a prairie to the west 
and a lake to the east, affording free circulation of air, the miasma 
is readily swept away; with dredges the river was deepened and the 
sand-bar lowered, canal excavations furnished material for elevating 
the streets and for making bricks; the pollution of lake water by 
sewage, was partially remedied by a tunnel under the lake drawing 
water from two miles beyond the shore, and a deep cut between 
Chicago and Joliet, thirty-six miles away, will admit water from the 
lake through the city, carry off the sewage, afford ample supply 
and depth of water for a ship canal, and give the marvel city credit 
for having reversed the current of a river — made its waters to run 
up stream — the first achievement of this kind. 



72 COSMONICS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

general government will demand some "neutral center" 
as a point of compromise. This was the case when an 
island in the river was chosen as a site for the national 
armory. Emulation and surveillance will be constant 
and reciprocal between Chicago and St. Louis. The 
springs of enterprise thus kept at a perpetual tension, 
will be a constant guarantee of improvement and pro- 
gress to the great central section of our country. This 
prolific region will receive liberal disbursements of capi- 
tal from these two moneyed centers in the strife of trade 
to secure patronage from the most prosperous community 
of people on earth, who will thereby be permitted to 
share the fruits of their own industry to a degree which 
could scarcely be hoped for if dependent on an unrivaled 
monopoly for a market. 

It would be unfair to estimate the importance of these 
cities by merely local advantages, however great because 
of the plexure of highways here converging, or to mea- 
sure their prospective magnitude by the wealth of the 
great basin of which they are the nuclei ; for they are 
cities of the nation and of the continent, and we can 
prove their worth only in the commerce of the world. 
In theory this can best be done by beginning with the 
knowledge we have gained from experience and observa- 
tion, wherein we must meet the arguments of those who 
take a different view. 

What, then, are the circumstances that have supplied 
the materials for our cities thus far? Whence have 
they derived their sustenance and support ? To what 
extent can they depend upon the same or similar re- 
sources in the future ? 



COSMONICS OF THE UNITED STATES. 73 

An aggregate increase of our population to 500,- 
000,000, distributed throughout the same districts and 
in the same proportion as at present, conducting busi- 
ness in the same manner, would cause a proportionate 
increase in the population of our cities, making it also 
ten times its present number. This would give to New 
York, say 15,000,000; to Philadelphia 10,000,000 and 
so on. If, however, this tenfold increase should take 
place entirely on our western border and throughout 
the central region, it is plain that the cities of those 
sections would have the full benefit of such increase, 
and in a still greater degree if American manufactures 
should supply the country's demands. Also, a relative 
decrease in our European and increase in our Asiatic 
trade, would proportionately affect the population of our 
Atlantic and Pacific cities, — the former unfavorably, the 
latter favorably. 

These changes are precisely what, to a large extent, 
are taking place. Our trade with Europe as compared 
with that of Asia, will show a relative decrease, and so 
also of our imports generally as compared with our 
manufactures. This will continue to be so, and the 
more as our country advances in age. 

In the first place our Pacific trade is new, like the 
Pacific States which will eventually be settled and cul- 
tivated as thoroughly as the East. In the second place, 
the habits, taste, genius, and skill of Americans and 
Europeans, are so similar that their productions are 
more alike than those of Americans and Asiatics, so that 
instead of being marts of reciprocal exchange, the cities 



74 COSMONICS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

of America and Europe will compete in the markets of 
the world ; while the products of America and of Asia, 
being more unlike because of the dissimilar character- 
istics and arts of the inhabitants of these countries, call 
in larger degree for exchange of their commodities. 

Nor will this effect, to any considerable extent, be 
neutralized by trans-Pacific immigration ; as those who 
come to this country and remain, will not only encourage 
and increase the interchange of commodities, but will 
be likely to adopt our customs ; so that the danger of 
becoming Asiatic in our notions, is far less than the 
probability of propagating our ideas in Asia; and the 
course of trade in that direction is prospectively in our 
favor, instead of being proportionately against us as has 
been the case with our European commerce. 

Should an extensive influx of Mongolians eventuate 
in transferring several of their industries to this country, 
the advantage would be still greater ; as commerce in 
home productions is of vastly more benefit to a people 
than merchandise in foreign wares which enriches 
foreigners at our expense, importers at the expense of 
the masses — speculators at the expense of producers. 
The present prosperity in the northern Atlantic States 
is largely due to domestic trade. 

It is no longer a question of policy but of necessity to 
our prosperous existence, that diversified industries be 
increased. Our agricultural interests are already in 
excess, and we must develop other products for which 
they can be profitably exchanged. As our people and 
their legislators in congress come to understand this 



COSMONICS OF THE UNITED STATES. 75 

matter, home industries will receive encouragement and 
protection more as a settled system in this country; 
manufacturing will gain upon importation, and indus- 
trial centres will grow accordingly. Cities which now 
dominate in mere trade, will find it necessary to devote 
more energy and capital to production, in order to retain 
their supremacy. 

With an ampler area and other advantages in her 
favor, Philadelphia, now the most extensive manu- 
facturing city on the Globe, may so gain in population 
and wealth as to leave New York behind in the race 
for supremacy, before the lapse of another century 

Civilization in its continual westward march, carries 
its virtues and vices together. It is to be hoped that we 
may not inflict upon the people of Asia the pernicious 
customs and demoralizing habits which we have im- 
bibed from Europe, notwithstanding the blood-money it 
might bring to our coifers by impoverishing our patrons. 
Giving gold for gilt has so largely been the rule in our 
trade with Europe, that we have dearly paid for a dis- 
sipation in which so many weak-minded Americans 
sacrifice themselves to the gratification of foreign caprice, 
vanity, and avarice. It is also greatly to be desired that 
in the "survival of the fittest" and the growth of inde- 
pendence with intelligence, our "toadyism" to royalty, 
with all our imitations and absurdities of fashion because 
from abroad, will henceforth decrease, to the credit of 
American good sense. 

We have thus far been pupils. As we assume the 
attitude of teachers, a characteristic dignity will assert 



76 COSMONICS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

itself; the importance of our position will be realized 
and our apish extravagance will proportionately disap- 
pear. The pertinence of these remarks is considered 
sufficient excuse for the digression. 

In view of the foregoing it is evident that eventually 
our most magnificent marts of ocean traffic will stand 
on the Pacific shore where the harbors are few and their 
cities must be proportionately large to meet the demands 
of an extensive trade. We see, therefore, that all is 
notably proportional, and what is more inferential than 
that the results of future developments will be in keeping 
with present conditions, — that country, coast, cities, and 
ships, will all be on a scale majestic as the sea, and as the 
mountains which stand like huge sentinels at the entrances 
to these domains, sublimely intimating what lies beyond! 

The tendencies of men are to feel and act according to 
their environment. We may expect that the business 
operations and liberal patriotism of the people of the 
Pacific States, will be a reflex of that dignity and 
splendor which are so lavishly displayed in the physical 
aspects of their clime. 

Oar Atlantic slope is narrower, as also is the ocean 
by which it is washed. The shore line is shorter and 
more numerously indented with bays and sounds than 
is the Pacific. Hence the shipping is divided among 
many cities with magnitude inversely as to their number; 
the size attained being due to causes already named, 
operating in a region long and densely populated as 
compared with the opposite side of the continent where 
the population is sparse and the harbors few and far apart. 



COSMONICS OP THE UNITED STATES. 77 

With most people there is no question as to which of 
the Pacific harbors is chief and destined to command 
the largest commerce, and therefore to sustain the 
largest city of the coast. San Francisco has the start 
and is also most central — as our country is now bounded ; 
hence her pre-eminence for all time is generally conceded. 
From this conclusion we are inclined to dissent, and will 
endeavor to show good cause therefor in what will 
shortly appear. 

The only pretensions to future rivalry are at San 
Diego, Portland, and Puget Sound. The latter will 
receive special attention while considering the trans- 
continental thoroughfares and the central line of civili- 
zation's march around the world. [Chart of the World.] 

Of the prospective and comparative merits and mag- 
nitude of the border and central cities, we here contend 
that the latter have the advantage. The reasons for this 
are so weighty and of such vital importance to our pros- 
perity, that they deserve more elaborate mention. 

Since the settlement of this country, our pursuits have 
been so extensively pastoral and agricultural that our 
mercantile fabrics have, until recently, come chiefly from 
abroad. Consequently imported articles have entered 
extensively into our commerce. This has made em- 
poriums of our seaports and princes of our importing 
merchants. Domestic goods, to a considerable extent, 
are now taking the place of foreign, the effect of which 
is an incentive to excellence among American workmen, 
and a stimulus to invention and skill in the construc- 
tion as well as in the use of machinery. We are, in 



78 COSMONICS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

consequence, becoming competitors with other countries 
in the manufacture of fabrics wherein they have hereto- 
fore monopolized our markets. The order of trade is, 
therefore, in some respects being reversed, and exports 
of finished wares as well as imports are beginning mea- 
surably to employ our harbors and shipping. This will 
continue to enhance the growth of our seaports, although 
importing will not, as heretofore, constitute their chief 
business. There will not be a falling off in the amount 
of their trade, but a change in its direction, and conse- 
quently in its character. 

This change will operate in various ways, advancing 
the growth of all our cities, but of the central ones 
most ; and will render what are now our principal ports, 
but secondary in importance as marts; for, the great 
interior with its capitals, will not only dominate in 
domestic commerce, but will also become the principal 
markets for foreign goods. 

As the Inter-Mount Region will be most densely 
populated, its mercantile patronage will be more exten- 
sive than that of all the rest of the country. There 
will be no occasion for its inhabitants (the consumers) to 
go outside the Great Basin for their supplies. The trade 
herein will be concentrative with wholesale markets few 
and centrally located, while on the outer slopes it will be 
divided among many seaports distributed on the out- 
skirts of the continent. Even there buyers will fre- 
quently find it more convenient to draw from the great 
centres, especially many of those who may live on the 
broad northern slope, from which the Interior will be 



COSMONICS OP THE UNITED STATES. 79 

reached much easier than border cities on either the 
Atlantic or the Pacific. 

The fact that goods both produced and consumed 
in this country are to constitute the chief articles of 
merchandise, adds much of weight to the interior de- 
velopment theory; for, such goods mostly seek a central 
mart for distribution. Even their exportation will be 
largely from the central cities, passing directly through 
to their destination. That our seaport merchants advo- 
cate an economic policy favoring foreign trade which 
tends to give them the monopoly of our commerce, is 
easily accounted for when we consider how frequently 
men are more selfish than patriotic. 

The importation of goods takes money away from the 
country to enrich foreign capitalists at the expense of 
our own people. It sustains an oppressive aristocracy, 
transportation monopolies, foreign enterprises, and great 
standing armies to menace the United States in case of 
threatened war. All of these are opposed to our free 
institutions and our system of government. The pur- 
chase of domestic goods retains money in the country to 
pay our own working people who patronize our indus- 
tries and our merchants, while it accumulates capital to 
develop American enterprise, establish American insti- 
tutions, and supply the sinews of war in favor of our 
own country. This fact is patent enough to stand 
without argument in the views of all fair minded, 
thinking men ; yet the opposite policy is advocated by 
a large 'number of Americans. 



80 COSMONICS OF THE UNITED STATES. 



LECTURE III. 

Experience is furnished by others in such abundance, that we 
scarcely need incur the expense of its purchase. 

Men are prone to force Nature rather than accommo- 
date themselves to her. They seldom awake to a real- 
izing sense of their intemperate folly until too late to 
recover their wasted energies. Either this is the case or 
they have great faith in popular credulity, believing that 
people are easily beguiled into the idea that lands and 
latitudes represented on paper are sure guides to the best 
locations. 

Speculators have made certain localities conspicuous 
by indicating city sites with ink marks, as though dis- 
tance and direction were the only considerations in 
making up an estimate for a country, and geology with 
topography and climatology of no account in the cal- 
culation, and geography useful only to determine super- 
ficial centres. They seem not to know that commerce 
is governed by the formation of continents and the char- 
acter of climates, and that these are not made by man. 

Commerce makes communities, and both of these will 
best flourish where conditions are most favorable; albeit 
geographical centers to the contrary. These are by no 
means to be overlooked however; and while other cir- 
cumstances are first in importance, the more central the 
location the better. 

Geographically, Omaha is the most central city on 



COSMONICS OF THE UNITED STATES. 81 

the continent ;* but drawing lines and describing circles 
does not make it the centre of civilization, as maps have 
been made to show. It lacks many of the conditions 
of a great commerce and of extensive manufacture as 
compared with some other localities. Duluth was at 
one time urged into Congress with representations quite 
as favorable, making it appear as the " Zenith city of the 
unsalted seas ;" but the excitement and mirth created by 
the brilliant burlesque of a recalcitrant member from 
Kentucky caused a hasty retreat of the claimants. The 
head of Lake Superior is an important location for a 
city. It is 200 miles farther west than the head of Lake 
Michigan, and the most western point of our large lakes; 
— a significant fact in its favor. It is therefore central 
in a very important sense, and is destined to become a 
prominent commercial point, but it is too far from the 
centre of habitation and activity for the chief emporium. 
Kansas has likewise been pressed forward as entitled 
to the high distinction of the middle state, with Topeka 
illuminated as the focal point ; and land-jobbers have 



* The strictly geographical center of the continent is probably on 
the 100th meridian and about the 45th parallel in Southwestern 
Dakota. In placing Omaha as the geographically central city, con- 
sideration is had for the fact that uninhabitable or thinly populated 
and remote portions are of little importance as compared with others. 
The commercial centers are those portions most active in traffic and 
trade. The political center comprises all the elements which com- 
bine to make up a state. The political center in this country is 
located at a point between the geographical and the commercial 
centers. The estimate is made for a completely settled country em- 
bracing the continent. 

6 



82 COSMONICS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

succeeded in speculating to a considerable extent in the 
light of that ignis-fatuus. That the geographical center 
of the United States as now bounded, — leaving out 
Alaska, — is in Kansas, has been proclaimed with greater 
emphasis than is warranted by a due consideration of all 
the facts, and the statement has received more attention 
than it merits. It must be joined to considerations of 
greater value before it can weigh heavily in the scale 
of public opinion regarding matters of individual advan- 
tage or of national consequence. 

Superficial measure alone does not settle the matter 
of population in regard to locality. It will gravitate 
to sections where the operations of existence can best be 
transacted and the comforts of life most readily obtained 
and enjoyed. Centrality and a fruitful soil are grounds 
for potent arguments in favor of settlement, and com- 
bined with attractive climate will secure to Kansas her 
full share of inhabitants-; but her manufacturing facili- 
ties and means of transportation are less than she will 
require to compete with more favored portions of the 
country in many of the elements of civilized life. 

Every state has its advantages, and any one of several 
others may plead as strong a claim as Kansas. Besides, 
for reasons already named and others to be given, it 
will be seen that Kansas is too far south to remain 
central, even in a geographical sense, because of the 
very extensive annexations of territory probable on our 
northern frontier, and the comparatively narrow bounds 
to the southward within which annexations are possible. 

A compromise locality between the geographical and 



COSMONICS OF THE UNITED STATES. 83 

the commercial centres, the " neutral centre " as between 
Chicago and St. Louis, must be a point of importance. 

Let us endeavor to ascertain and foreshow where is to 
be situated this third central city of the Great Interior. 

This calls for a full consideration of our present and 
prospective centre of population, and embraces the rela- 
tions to our country of its various sections and of those 
portions of the continent outside our present boundary. 

The great Northwest is the field for the coming pioneer 
and for frontier enterprise. Whether it be true or not 
that the removal of our boundary will give us the 
British Possessions, the colonization of that portion of 
the country will, as already stated, materially augment 
the commerce of the United States to which those people 
must look for an immediate market ; and because of the 
great breadth of the continent in those latitudes where 
also the harbors are ice-bound in winter, the commerce 
between the two sections, central and northern, must 
be internal; while Mexico will never, in any way, be 
dependent upon the United States for the sale of pro- 
ducts or for supplies. Her narrow form and extensive 
shore line on both sides throughout her entire length, 
give her constant and ready access to both oceans and 
bring the markets of the world directly to her doors 
which are never closed by frost. United with us or not, 
in respect to commerce with our country, she will to a 
large extent always bear the relation of an outlying 
island, for, long distances by land and facility of inter- 
course with our entire coast by sea, will make this a 
common medium of transportation, although railroads 



84 COSMONICS OP THE UNITED STATES. 

will be mostly used for travel. But as our country is 
to be a field of enterprise in every part, the question is 
not, in what direction will this extend, but where most f 
Also, not where is the center of population, but, where 
will it be when the country becomes fully settled? what 
sections are to be the scenes of greatest activity f and are 
these portions accompanied by the elements of local wealth? 

The Center of Population, as an expression, may have 
two entirely different meanings. One, that locality 
where people will gather in largest numbers. This 
is more important than the other, which means that 
point upon every side of which (including leverage by 
distance) the weight of population will be balanced. 
These two centres may be wide apart, as the history of 
this country thus far will show. Let us see if they are 
tending to coincide, and how near they will ultimately 
come together. This is a matter of much consequence, 
for between the two, as between both and the geo- 
graphical center, a compromise may have to be effected 
in finding a site for our future capital, or for any 
national institution requiring centrality of location. Such 
location falls within the boundaries of Iowa, Illinois 
and Missouri. [See Chart B]. This tri-state nucleus 
is traversed or touched by the lake and river system in 
their strongest combination. All three are immensely 
agricultural. Of the three, Iowa is geographically the 
most central and dominantly agricultural, while Mis- 
souri in mining and Illinois in commerce are pre-eminent. 

Computed upon the theoretical basis as above given, 
according to the United States Census, the centre of 



COSMONICS OF THE UNITED STATES. 85 

population which in 1790 was twenty-three miles east 
of Baltimore, has moved steadily westward, shifting very 
little to the north or south of latitude 39°. The total 
movement from 1790 to 1880 — ninety years — was 457 
miles, almost due west, while the extreme variations 
north and south, did not exceed twenty miles. The 
greatest movement during one decade was eighty-one 
miles — from 1850 to 1860. This sudden acceleration 
was caused by the transfer of a considerable body of 
population from the Atlantic to the Pacific coast — twelve 
persons in San Francisco theoretically exerting as much 
pressure at the then pivotal point, viz. : the crossing of 
the 83d meridian and 39th parallel — 20 miles south of 
Chillicothe, Ohio — as forty individuals in Boston. In 
1880 the center of population was eight miles west by 
south from the heart of Cincinnati. 

It is noticeable that the trend of the lakes depresses 
our northern boundary very much to the southward, 
west of the Alleghenies, as far as Toledo; and 
that if the population of Canada could have been 
reckoned in with that of the United States, the center 
under consideration would have been somewhat farther 
to the north. The longitude of central Michigan having 
been reached, and the crowding southward having ceased, 
the center will henceforth be drawn northward by a pre- 
ponderance of settlements in the Northwest * over those 
in the Southwest. 



* It is worthy of remark that simultaneously with the taking of 
this to press, the unprecedented act of admitting four states (in the 
Northwest) was consummated, although the paragraph containing 
this statement was written more than fourteen years before. 



86 COSMONICS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

It is not, therefore, difficult to conjecture as to the 
direction this political equator will take, even should our 
domain be confined within its present limits. It will 
move westward and northward in a line approximately 
parallel to the Isothermal Zone which, after passing 
Lake Michigan, sweeps away to the Northwest, carrying 
the climate of central Pennsylvania through Minnesota 
and Dakota into British America far beyond our present 
boundary.* Our territory in that direction is rich in 
the elements of prosperity, and of such extent that its 
rapid occupation by settlers will speedily throw an im- 
mense weight of population into that portion of the 
country. This, with our Canadian annexation, will 
draw the traveling center northward, as explained, until 
the center of gravity between the East and the West 
shall have been reached. 

Alaska and the productive region of British Columbia 
in the northwest, lie directly in range with the West 
India Islands to the southeast, on a line lengthwise of 
the Missouri Valley and parallel to the Isothermal just 
mentioned. [See Chart A]. The annexation of Cuba 
and Hayti, therefore, would not change the direction of 
our moving center, although it would slightly affect its 
resting place — the center of gravity. The movement 
will henceforth continue to be slower as the permanent 
center is approached, and will be but slightly perceptible 
in the latest decades of its migration. It will probably 
not pass beyond the Mississippi River about longitude 
90° from Greenwich. This, although east of the geo- 



* See Chart B. 



OOSMONICS OF THE UNITED STATES. 87 

graphical center is not too much so, for the broken 
mountain regions and arid plains which do not admit 
of so dense a population as the central and eastern sec- 
tions, occupy large areas on the western half of the 
continent. 

The advantage of precedence in time, established in- 
stitutions, accumulated wealth, and proximate relations 
with Europe, Africa, the West India Islands, and South 
America east of the Andes, together with the more 
rapid development of diversified industries in states 
east of the Mississippi and in the active region around 
the great foci of internal commerce, — Chicago and St. 
Louis, — will enable these portions to maintain their 
equivalence of population, thus holding our political 
axis near to the commercial meridian as above given. 

Africa lies farther west than Asia and Europe, while 
South America lies farther east than North America. 
By this circumstance the waters between them are very 
much narrowed on the Atlantic side, and correspond- 
ingly widened on the Pacific side. The mountains range 
chiefly along the Pacific and Indian Oceans, causing 
narrow slopes on those sides, and consequently wide 
countries towards the Atlantic Ocean into which flow 
the waters of both. The great breadths of land there- 
fore, lying east of the Andes and west of the Moon and 
Dragon ranges, are to trade principally through Atlantic 
waters. With the United States this trade will be 
through ports east of the Rocky Mountains. The de- 
velopment of the southern continents, under European 
and American influence, will bring forward an enormous 



88 COSMONICS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

commerce, much of which may be tributary to our 
central cities by way of the Gulf of Mexico and the 
Mississippi Valley, independent of the Atlantic coast 
cities. Whatever of commercial enterprise may here- 
after be developed through Hudson Bay, will belong to 
the Atlantic side, and like that through the Gulf, be 
tributary to the activity, population, and wealth of the 
central region but eastern half of the continent, where 
nearly all the interior commercial waters cluster.* 

By these influences the center of population will be 
held perpetually east of the geographical center. 

Unless our center of population be deflected from its 
normal course by some improbable influence, its general 
direction is likely to be from the vicinity of Cincinnati, 
[See Chart C], towards Indianapolis, and so on through 
Central Illinois, by way of Bloomington, to its rest in 
the shadow of our Flag auspiciously erected on the 
island so wisely chosen for the Nation's Arsenal. 

In its travel, this populous center will pass nearly 
midway between the chief cities, — Chicago and St. 
Louis, — giving to neither the benefit of proximity. The 
state in which its journey will most likely end, is to be 
first in the Union, hence, the Empire State — perhaps the 
Capital State. Great is Illinois ! 

As local excitements may cause spasmodic surges in 



* By the eastern half of the continent is meant all that lies east 
of the 100th meridian from Greenwich, or 23° from Washington. It 
passes east of Dodge City in Kansas and west of the City of Mexico. 
Nearly all of Central America lies farther east than the 90th Merid- 
ian and the Mississippi River. [See Chart A]. 



COSMONICS OF THE UNITED STATES. 89 

the great sea of human life, the center may swerve 
from this line of march or oscillate around its destined 
goal; but its vibration will not be to a great distance 
from the line or locality mentioned. This locality, already 
conspicuous, is, in all human probability, destined to 
become the first in importance within the broad basin, 
except the two already named — Chicago and St. Louis 
which we will style the Metropoli. 

This third point, not yet herein named, is most for- 
tunately situated as a center, and possesses a larger 
number of the elements of greatness than any other spot 
on the continent of North America, although some of 
these elements do not exist in so large a degree as at 
some other places. It would be unfortunate if they did, 
as it would give rise to that great municipal supremacy, 
and hence commercial monopoly so much to be depre- 
cated, and from the dangers of which a wise Creator 
has protected us by so distributing advantages as to 
place the levers of power in different hands ; thus, by 
the insuperable barriers of circumstance, guarding each 
against encroachments from the other. While this third 
city of the trio possessing the largest number of advan- 
tages, is prevented from becoming dominant by the 
limitations of some of them, the more important of 
which are possessed by the other two, it is so situated 
in relation to both of them as to secure therefrom, 
in their own interest, certain co-operation and support 
which will strengthen its connection with them. Thereby 
it becomes a participant, and to some extent a com- 
petitor in their prosperity. Situated upon the great 



90 COSMONICS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

natural highway of commerce between the far north and 
the extreme south, thus participating with St. Louis in 
the benefits which she derives from this circumstance, it 
is likewise in the line of the great commercial belt which 
spans the continent from east to west, thereby sharing 
in benefits enjoyed by Chicago. As a manufacturing 
locality it also possesses exceptional advantages. 

Standing thus at the zenith of transit and intercourse 
and having unusual attractions for industrial interprise; 
although last to be named and least in commercial im- 
portance, it is likely to be first of the three in political 
significance and supremacy; for, nowhere else are the 
various elements of central ity so well combined as here. 

At a remove from the rivals — Chicago and St. Louis 
— sufficiently far to obviate all danger of jealousy, it 
will be a favorable ground of compromise when prefer- 
ence must be had for a new site on which to locate our 
National Seat of Government. In such an event, the 
zero meridian for America will be transferred from 
Washington, and eventually for the world from Green- 
wich, and located on the axis of the Mississippi which 
is now 13° for America and 90° for the World. 

Then, as now, the Globe will be divided into its 
four quarters on lines passing through Central North 
America, Central Pacific Ocean, Central Asia, and Green- 
wich at London. [See Chart of the World]. The latter 
point being now on the zero meridian, will then be 90° 
East Longitude. Calcutta in India will be changed 
from 90° East to 180 East and West, while 90° West 
will pass through the center of the Pacific Ocean which 



COSMONICS OF THE UNITED STATES. 91 

is now the 180° East and West. Then the starting 
point for calculating longitudes will be axial to the 
" Father of Waters." and Empire in its course will have 
erected its standard at a remove westward, one-fourth of 
its entire circuit. Whether through ignorance, accident, 
or by creative design, it is remarkable that these imagin- 
ary lines are drawn in such perfect relation to the great 
natural features of our Planet. 

With due regard to the other two points, the one 
under consideration is as far northward and as far west- 
ward as we can go for the purpose here proposed. It 
is the only point suitable for an agreement between the 
geographical center near Omaha and the commercial 
centers represented by the two cities aforenamed, while 
according to the best calculations that can be made, it is 
also the goal of our travelling center of population. 

Lines drawn from each one to the others of these 
three points, describe a triangle whose base is the line of 
Empire's westward march, its perpendicular, southward 
along or near the ninetieth meridian, and its hypotenuse 
a straight line between Chicago and St. Louis. This 
triangle, the prism, embraces an area of twenty thousand 
square miles. A circle drawn through its three angles 
would compass nearly as much territory as the whole 
state of Illinois, and a circle described from its right 
angle with a radius reaching to the confluence of the 
Ohio and Mississippi Rivers, 333 miles, takes in a 
region of country equal in size to the five states, Illinois, 
Iowa, Missouri, Indiana and Wisconsin. The area thus 
enclosed, contained in 1870 one-fourth of the population 



92 COSMONICS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

then living in the United States. Extend this radius 
to Memphis, and it would describe a circle embracing the 
equivalent of ten great states. It would pass through 
the channels of Lakes Huron and Superior to the mouth 
of Pigeon River. It would touch near Cleveland in 
Ohio, Huron in Dakota, and Little Rock in Arkansas. 
It would take in but half of the state of Kansas; yet, 
see by the region compassed, what an aggregation of ele- 
ments, powerful in their functions and vital to our pros- 
perity, focalize around its nucleine center. [Chart B, 
Page 84]. It takes in either all or a portion of each of 
fifteen great central states, and embraces an area more 
comprehensive in the elements of activity than its equal 
in both shape and scope anywhere else on the continent. 

The Upper and Central Mississippi with the Lower 
Missouri and Ohio Rivers and several of their naviga- 
ble tributaries, together with the upper portion of Erie 
and the entire lake system above it are embraced, and 
show a concentration of natural business forces not else- 
where found on the Globe; while the artificial appli- 
ances are proportional and equally significant, with a 
certainty of great augmentation. In this concentration 
of agencies and instrumentalities, in this constellation of 
states, Illinois holds the position of advantage, and con- 
sequently of greatest importance. She is more than 
half surrounded by navigable rivers, while on the oppo- 
site side, — that portion of her border untouched by 
them, the great lakes are at her command. 

The two great natural highways reaching from ocean 
to interior and the railroads which run approximately 



COSMONICS OF THE UNITED STATES. 93 

near them, will, with the latter's continuations, always 
form the chief established lines of trans-continental 
transportation. Along these lines between opposite 
coasts of the country, east and west, north and south, 
shipments on the largest scale will be made and pas- 
sengers in largest numbers will travel. 

The immense traffic between the North and the South, 
which differences in climate and productions will always 
necessitate, must be carried on chiefly by way of the 
Mississippi River and railroads traversing longitudi- 
nally the belt of country through which it runs, con- 
necting Hudson Bay and the Gulf of Mexico. 

A distinguishing feature of our state system is ob- 
servable in the belt formed by Louisiana, Arkansas, 
Missouri, Iowa and Minnesota. The Mississippi River 
forms the east line of this belt throughout almost its 
entire length. In the latitude where it ends on the 
eastern side in Minnesota, the line is taken up on the 
western by the Red River of the North, and continues 
through Lake Winnipeg and the Nelson River to Hud- 
son Bay. Between this and the Gulf of Mexico the 
belt will probably be unbroken by the addition of two 
states when all annexations on the North are completed, 
forming the Great Central Belt, of which Iowa will be 
central in the line of seven. Thus, east and west, north 
and south, Iowa will have the distinguishing honor of 
the Central State, and the belt above described will be, 
geographically, the Central Belt spanning the Waist of 
the Continent, and its western line will, geographically, 
be the central line, while its eastern border will be politi- 



94 COSMONICS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

catty the center line, and Illinois will be in the central 
belt, east and west, north and south — hence commercially 
and politically, Illinois is to be the Center State. The 
great trans-continental thoroughfare between the Atlantic 
and the Pacific, — in a large measure the world's high- 
way between Europe and Asia, — will be upon the lakes 
and over railroads which pass through the region con- 
tiguous to their shores. [See Chart B.] 

It needs but a glance at the chorographical features of 
our country to reach the conclusion that the land lines 
of most importance, because continuous and also in 
close proximity, must lie to the south of these lakes and 
near the shores of Erie and Michigan, the southern ex- 
tremities of which, by remarkable coincidence are on 
the same line of latitude. This line is also the median 
of the great commercial zone which traverses the con- 
tinent latitudinally, and which also embraces, like the 
transverse belt just mentioned, a great commercial belt 
along which population will concentrate, industry de- 
velop, and business intensify, more and more as the vast 
interior becomes more actively the grand arena of the 
world's civilization. 

Whatever may be said of this as a border or one- 
sided route, the fact is that earlier settlements in lati- 
tudes farther south have never found nor availed to 
open up a more central thoroughfare, nor to lessen the 
importance of this one. On the contrary, its importance 
augments with the growth of the country in wealth and 
trade, and with their continued advance will become 
more firmly established as the central avenue to the 



COSMONICS OF THE UNITED STATES. 95 

interior. The Mississippi River was once beyond our 
frontier; but now the frontier and the Mississippi have 
not only changed relations, but their relation is dif- 
ferenced by a still wider space. 

Our movement westward has reached its limit. Hence- 
forth our Empire must grow towards the North until the 
concave of our boundary in that direction assumes a 
better shape, and the crescent is rounded to the full. 
Then we shall see how wisely Nature planned the world's 
highway, when she dug the channel of St. Lawrence 
and the lakes to concentrate the forces of this country 
into the fields of largest freedom, and the center of its 
domain where sways no scepter but that of security 
under the rule of Equal Rights. 

Until then these water-ways are well planned to ac- 
commodate at once the United States and their sisters in 
prospect, — the Provinces on the North. The benefits 
of having a portion of the family nursed through in- 
fancy by the mother hand, will be better appreciated 
when our capacities are enlarged and understanding 
matured. 

All internal commerce of this continent, must event- 
ually be within the domain of the United States whose 
territory shall be bounded only by the sea.* This 
prophecy, a not distant future will confirm as fact. 
Already the swelling tide of population is pressing our 
northern border, while the settlements impinging along 
the lines must gravitate to us with augmenting force 



* The Isthmu3 of Panama is too small to be named as an exception. 



96 COSMONICS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

as the weight of both increases. The land-marks and 
water-marks between them and us, will serve as state 
lines, but they are not permanent as national bounda- 
ries. For more than half the distance they are merely 
imaginary, and will be a source of disturbance until 
removed by either consent or conquest. The air of free- 
dom and of thraldom must cease to be inhaled at the 
same breath, and a closer intimacy than that allowed by 
international commerce, will be required to meet the 
future demands of a great and populous section of the 
same country. 

A vast extent of seaboard stretches from the Gulf of 
St. Lawrence to Chesapeake Bay. As these waters 
with intervening harbors north and south of the 40th 
parallel point eastward and southward respectively, 
indicating: the course of ocean commerce to and 
from their seaports, so do their channels converge in- 
versely to the direction of their currents, until they 
approach each other on the eastern rim of the great 
basin ; and, conforming to Nature's pattern, the railways 
likewise approach from widely separated points on the 
Atlantic until they reach the Passage between the Great 
Lakes and the Ohio River. Through this Pass and 
The Gateway is the readiest access to the Pacific States. 

As these roads converge across great spaces from a 
long coast-line and numerous cities until they reach the 
centers of the middle region ; so, after passing these 
centers they will again diverge over greater spaces to a 
longer coast-line and a broader ocean, with cities pro- 



COSMONICS OF THE UNITED STATES. 97 

portioned in size to their distances apart. Their points 
of divergence from the lakes and the Mississippi 
are so located as in the best manner to accommodate 
the population throughout the eastern coast and the 
central states. [See Chart C, page 88.] 

As a bridge over the Lower Mississippi is improbable 
and over the Lakes impossible, the space between St. 
Louis and Chicago is likely to be the Gateway of the 
Highway across the Continent for all coming time.* 
Between the East and the West, the South East and 
North West, and the North East and South West, the 
great bulk of traffic will be through this Gateway- 
Even from the South East to the South West and from 
the North East to the North West, the tracks will bend 
around these posts planted 325 miles apart. From the 
northern shore of Lake Superior to the Gulf of Mexico, 
this is the only unobstructed passage. How admirably 
providential that it is centrally placed. It is also 
worthy of notice that St. Louis being more westerly 
than Chicago, a line from one to the other — the hy- 
potenuse of the triangle already given — is diagonal to 
parallels and meridians in just that direction which is 
at right angles to the course of population as here out- 
lined, in its approach to the right angle of the Prism, 
and to the " Course of Empire " beyond, in its march 
to the Pacific Ocean. A line through the Strait of 
Juan de Fuca in the Pacific, and Rock Island in the 
Mississippi, is perpendicular to the hypotenuse at a 



* Historical time, not geological. 

7 



98 COSMONICS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

point midway between Chicago and St. Louis.* Again, 
the difference in longitude between Chicago and St. 
Louis — about 175 miles — affords ample space for inter- 
course between the North and the South by land lines, 
and is the chief gap because it commands both the lakes 
and the rivers, represented by Michigan and the Missis- 
sippi which run approximately parallel to each other. 
East from Chicago, like barriers to bridging exist as 
north of that city, while west of the Mississippi the great 
commercial combination of Nature rapidly disappears. 

The line of greatest activity between the Mississippi 
and the Pacific, and the country to which it relates, will 
be simultaneously settled in due time. It is evident 
that many lines of transit will be required for the im- 
mense traffic eventually to be carried on between the 
extensive and fertile regions which lie on opposite sides 
of the Rocky Mountains. 

In a field so vast and so certain to be the theatre of 
mighty changes in the near future, it would be vain to 
attempt an estimate of the probable amount of business 
which all, or even any one of the roads will be called 
upon to do. It is a subject which, as to the compara- 
tive merits of different routes, is open for speculation ; 
and we may enter upon the task with as much assurance 
as upon that of locating the center of population, for 
the bases of a rational conclusion are abundant. 

The first view of this matter should be taken with an 
acknowledgment of the necessity for accommodating a 

* Prolonged, this line passes through Cincinnati and near to In- 
dianapolis, Ealeigh, N. C, and Cape Hatteraa. 



COSMONICS OF THE UNITED STATES. 99 

vast expanse of country with local traffic, and a sea- 
coast of great length, and of protecting these with the 
Center and the East against monopoly, by several inde- 
pendent and competing lines of railway. Waterways 
are out of the question here except for local purposes. 
This, however, is an important factor in determining the 
route of greatest probable magnitude. 

The considerations which enter most largely into the 
subject and which must ultimately decide the question 
of predominance as to the respective routes, are their 
different lengths and comparative cost of construction 
and operation. It is likewise important that a practica- 
ble route across the continent shall terminate at a capa- 
cious and convenient harbor. 

As a rule in transportation the shortest voyages by 
sea and the longest by inland navigation are sought, 
whereby the most interior and, if possible, central por- 
tions of a country may be reached. No where else on 
the Pacific coast in North America are these advantages 
to be found equal to those at Puget Sound and the 
Columbia River. 

The heads of both these waters draw us in the same 
general northwesterly direction from both the eastern 
and the central cities. They extend farther inland than 
any harbor farther south, and at the same time are 
nearer to Japan and China. They are also nearer to 
Duluth, Chicago, Philadelphia, and New York. At 
first this may seem paradoxical. It therefore calls for 
the following explanation : 

As we leave the tropics and approach the Polar Zones, 



100 COSMONICS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

the distance around our globe diminishes, and each 
higher latitude is a smaller circle of the Planet. Even 
diagonal distances between meridians may be less than 
horizontal ones on larger parallels. From San Diego 
eastward to Europe, and from Savannah westward to 
Japan, the distances are less in direct lines which are 
diagonals across America, than they are by way of their 
own parallels to the opposite sides of the continent. 
The diagonal lines also have the advantage of passing 
through or near the central cities, especially St. Louis, 
These directions are at right angles with sea-coasts, at the 
points of departure where the continent is cuneiform and 
narrows on both sides southward like a wedge, and roads 
from them directly inward are also northward. These 
relative directions of coast and trunk lines are in accord- 
ance with natural laws governing trade. [Chart A]. 

The St. Louis bridge is in the direction of lines per- 
pendicular to the coasts at Charleston, Savannah, and at 
San Diego. Southern cities have greater necessity for 
trade with northern cities than with each other, where- 
fore it is easy to understand that south of the great 
axial belt of intercourse, there is less occasion for bridges 
over the Mississippi than across its northern portion. 
The lower Mississippi and its overflowed land therefore, 
divide the Southern states into two groups, both of 
which will seek the markets at and above St. Louis. 
This is the lowest point at which the river is likely to 
be spanned, as the enormous expense and other objec- 
tions to be encountered, besides obstructions to naviga- 
tion, furnish difficulties not easily surmounted. 



COSMONICS OF THE UNITED STATES. 101 

Whatever may be the number of railroad lines to the 
Pacific, in no case will their projectors lose sight of the 
great importance of connecting directly with the cities 
of the interior, and through them with the Atlantic Sea- 
board. The center must be reached from every side, and 
by every great through line in all directions. 

Shore and side lines, cross routes, and lateral branches, 
will be numerous, and many of them important; but, 
Charleston with Chicago and San Diego with St. Louis, 
will be more valuable connections than either of these 
coast cities with the other. A railroad from Savannah 
to San Diego will be of vastly less consequence as a 
through route than as a subtending line ; deriving 
more benefit from its intersections with diametrical ones 
through the centers than on account of the connection 
of its own extremes. New York with New Orleans is 
also a valuable railroad connection ; but bears no com- 
parison to that of either city with the Interior. Port- 
land in Maine and Portland in Oregon will be of far 
less importance to each other, than will interjacent cities 
be to both. Long Island Sound and Puget Sound will 
always find in the Mississippi Valley a sounder basis of 
wealth than either will in the great city of its counter- 
part ; and yet, these two cities so corresponding in their 
relations both to sea and shore, extremes as they are, 
will probably become the principal media of inter- 
oceanic transit. New York may yet find in a new city 
— perhaps not yet named — on the Pacific coast at Puget 
Sound, that co-operation which will command athwart 
our country the principal commerce between Asia and 
Europe, — the extremes of the Old World. 



102 COSMONICS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

Those who think we are locating our metropolis in 
too high a latitude, have but to compare the physical 
features of the old and the new continents, and see how 
climates and latitudes vary between their eastern and 
western shores, to discover that our calculation is phil- 
osophically correct. 

The correspondence between the eastern shores and 
the western shores, respectively, of the continents of the 
northern hemisphere, will surprise any observer who has 
never investigated the subject. We find Pekin and 
Philadelphia upon exactly the same parallel. Spain 
and Portugal, the most, southern countries of Europe, 
correspond with northern California, embracing San 
Francisco ; while Paris and Puget Sound agree in lati- 
tude, and all the British Isles with their great cities, 
including London the largest on the globe, lie still 
farther north. If British Europe on the Atlantic, is 
happy under the salutary effects of the Gulf Stream, 
why may not British America on the Pacific, rejoice 
under the benign influence of the Japan Current, since 
it lies in the same zone and in the same relative geo- 
graphical position? If Sweden and Norway thrive, 
may not Alaska also when girt by the same Circle ? 

London and Liverpool are farther north than Puget 
Sound ; then why may not the latter nurse a great com- 
merce upon its bosom and smile in the face of great 
cities where Nature has supplied all the conditions of 
trade, both local and external ? With her ease of ap- 
proach from China and Japan, and with her peerless 
harbor surrounded by all the favorable circumstances of 



COSMONICS OP THE UNITED STATES. 103 

climate and country, abounding in minerals, timber, and 
food, her waters are destined to reflect a municipal 
grandeur commensurate with such magnificent condi- 
tions. The arguments which these facts are brought to 
support, are amply sustained by the general fact that 
mild climates reach to higher latitudes on the western 
than on the eastern coasts of the continents. 

Climates on opposite sides of the Northern Atlantic, 
if compared, show a remarkable difference in favor of the 
Old World. The frozen regions of Labrador north of 
Newfoundland, lie under the same degree of latitude 
as Plymouth in England where the myrtle and laurel 
remain perpetually verdant in the open air. In New 
York which has a more southern situation than Rome, 
the winter is colder than at Bergen in Norway, which 
is 20° farther to the north. On the northern coasts of 
Europe, waters remain open a great part of the year, 
even beyond the latitude of 80° ; while on the opposite 
or western shore — the eastern coast of Greenland — the 
ice never completely thaws. Through Davis Strait, ice- 
bergs float into the Atlantic, causing a chill to which the 
Pacific is never subjected. On the eastern shore of the 
Atlantic Ocean, in Europe, the latitude of 50° which 
crosses the English channel, is the median line of wisdom 
and wealth, population and power, and corresponds to 
latitude 40° upon its western shore in the eastern states 
of America. 

This variance of ten degrees between the two shores 
of the Atlantic, is found to occur in like manner be- 
tween the two shores of the Pacific. The deflection in 



104 COSMONICS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

climate, the zone of progress, the march of civilization 
perpetually westward, are from higher to lower latitudes 
as they proceed across the water, and from lower to 
higher again as they move athwart the land. Descend- 
ing from 50° to 40° across the Pacific, brings the Gulf 
of Georgia near Puget Sound in America, and Pekin in 
China, within the same line of activity, and the state of 
Oregon into similar relations with the Empire of Japan, 
some ten degrees farther south. 

So, also, in crossing the continents from their eastern 
to their western shores, the median lines of commercial 
activity ascend northward in and through corresponding 
degrees. Entering Asia in latitude 40° at Pekin, the 
seat of power in China, and rising to latitude 50° which 
runs midway between Paris and London, and again 
entering America at about latitude 40°, analogy and 
reason alike teach us that it will again rise to 50° or 
thereabout, as nearly as the conditions will permit. It is 
a striking coincidence that these conditions in both cases 
are provided by Nature at just about where the corre- 
sponding latitudes indicate. This significant fact sug- 
gests the thought that it is not the work of chance, but of 
design. The slight variance from exact measurements 
in the two cases is not sufficient to justify critical remark. 
If such should be captiously advanced, the causes for an 
apparent discrepancy will be found more numerous than 
necessary for a complete explanation. Fidelity to plan 
would hint that the seeming degree of difference should 
be more, since the distance is greater across the land of 
the eastern hemisphere than across the western. 



COSMONICS OF THE UNITED STATES. 105 

But these effects are not dependent upon distances 
by land, since they are caused by the action of waters 
between lands. America being less in width than Asia 
and Europe, and the lateral distance across a given 
number of parallels the same, it is plain that the angle 
of incidence in a diagonal line must also be less.- The 
ascent in a direct line is, therefore, steeper between 
Philadelphia and Puget Sound than between Pekin and 
Paris. This is quite in keeping, as the elements which 
promote activity are more intense in their operation 
upon this than upon the opposite side of the globe — the 
inclination being more abrupt or approximating nearer 
to the angularity of 45°, the direction of greatest potency 
in mechanical execution or for developing energies, 
activities, and refinements of the highest order by the 
operation of natural forces. 

Besides, the great distance across the eastern conti- 
nent and the consequent apparently slight obliquity of 
the line in question, is fully compeusated by its extreme 
deviation in an immense dip towards the south, tra- 
versing a greater number of latitudes or parallels 
in its descent and ascent, than in crossing America. 
The nature of the country compels this, and although 
seeming to be an arbitrary departure from a rule, or a 
contradiction of statement, it rather shows the truth of 
the one and consistency of the other ; for if instead of 
the Thian Tschan and other mountains of Central Asia, 
there existed a great and fertile valley; if instead of 
the great desert of Cobi 2,000 miles in length, there lay 
an inland sea or any navigable water surrounded by 



106 COSMONICS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

fertile plains like the interior of North America, it is 
easy to understand how different might be the commerce 
and the civilization of Asia.* 

The interior of our country is as opposite in char- 
acter, as it is antipodal in relation to the region men- 
tioned. Instead of sterile mountains and arid deserts 
like those of Tartary, we have in corresponding posi- 
tion, great fertile plains traversed by navigable waters, 
inviting instead of repelling cultivation and commerce. 
Hence the forces of civilization here are concentrative 
and strong instead of distributive and weak. The 
march of Empire across our continent, therefore, though 
having similarities, in its aggregate course is more direct 
and intense than in the Old World. 

From the western shore of the Caspian Sea in 40° 
north latitude, near Mount Ararat, to the city of Paris, 
the degrees of latitude crossed are the same as those 
between Philadelphia and the middle channel of our 
great Northwestern Inlet which forms the Strait of 
Juan de Fuca and Gulf of Georgia, or waters in com- 
mon with Puget Sound ; while the degrees of longitude 
from the same starting point to London are just equal 
in number to those between Philadelphia and the mouth 
of the Inlet above given. 

Thus we see that from the beginning of historic f 



* If the Kussian railroad across Siberia be built on the plan pro- 
jected, it will do much to transform Central Asia in the early part 
of the next century. It will not, however, change the axis of inter- 
course as here laid down. 

f Biblical History. 



COSMONICS OF THE UNITED STATES. 107 

progress in the Old World to its most luminous points 
on the western shores of Europe, the latitudes and 
longitudes bear a nearly exact relation to those in the 
path of Civilization's march across the continent of 
North America. The inference therefore is rational that 
the English Channel and the Straits of Juan de Fuca, 
so closely resembling each other in trading facilities and 
physical characteristics, were alike predestined to ebb 
and flow amidst the most gigantic ocean commerce on 
the western shores of their respective hemispheres. 

The 40th parallel seems to be the base line of prolific 
activity around the world — the Commercial Equator of 
the Northern Hemisphere — the magnetic center of a 
belt laden on either side with an equiponderance of 
human events; differenced, however, by diverse char- 
acteristics and displayed with proportionate power, 
(albeit at different times,) at equal distances in either 
direction from this axis of sentient motion which, de- 
scending to 20° in Asia and ascending to 60° in Europe 
(Calcutta and St. Petersburg indicating the lines of 
average extreme South and North), gives us in the Old 
World a zone forty degrees in width as well as parallel 
No. 40 for its center line. 

The spurs and projections falling below 20° and rising 
above 60° are off-sets on either extreme, which about 
counterbalance those upon the other, in area, importance 
and the number of degrees across which they extend. 
The two horns of India on the South, and the Scandi- 
navian Peninsula — Norway and Sweden — on the North, 
are respectively principal parts of the projections to 



108 COSMONICS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

which this statement refers, each spanning ten degrees 
beyond the belt embraced within the lines mentioned. 
Extending our estimate of equiponderance to both hem- 
ispheres and embracing all continents, we find that two 
greater horns — Africa and South America — with Aus- 
tralia and other islands on the south side of the Com- 
merical Axis we give, about balance what lies on the 
north side, and that, considering the formation of the 
southern continents and their distances apart as com- 
pared with countries in the northern hemisphere, our 
Axis of Empire is really the Equator of commerce and 
intercourse, not only for the northern continents but for 
the entire Globe. 

It is noticeable that the descent from China to India 
is marked by a corresponding depression in the mental 
characteristics of the people ; while from thence to 
Europe the ascent is attended with corresponding im- 
provement. 

It so happens (or was so designed) that this axial line 
of intelligence, in its rise from Asia to Europe through 
degrees of excellence as well as of latitude, crosses the 
balance-line of parallel 40° just where the latter is also 
crossed by the geographical division between Europe and 
Asia; so that nearly all of active Asia is on the south 
side of the 40th parallel, while the most of Europe lies 
north of it. Though far less in magnitude, the intelli- 
gence and commercial importance of the latter is a full 
equivalent for the aggregate of the former, however 
superior its extent of area and number of population. 
This triplex intersection of lines, so important in the 



COSMONICS OP THE UNITED STATES. 109 

facts associated with their existence, adds much of 
interest to a region already prominent as the triple 
junction of the continents * of the Old World and 
famous as the nursery of historic progress, and the ele- 
ments of modern civilization. 

Approaching it from commercial Asia in the path 
already indicated which leads along the Persian Gulf, 
up the River Euphrates by the ruins of ancient Babylon 
once the ruling city of the world, it passes through Pales- 
tine, midway between Ararat and Egypt, to the mouth of 
the Dardanelles, whence within a comparatively small 
radius the most luminous points of the ancient East 
appear. 

It may not be without significance that this pivotal 
point in anthropography, this solar plexus of a hemis- 
phere, this political center of the eastern world, was the 
birth-place of Christianity ; and affords a commanding 
position for that central shrine of History and Hope — 
the City of Jerusalem. 

The parts which Egypt and Persia have played in the 
great drama of human progress it is not our purpose to 
consider, nor are we to speculate on the coming civili- 
zation of Africa and its effect in future ages on this 
interesting portion of the historic world. The Suez 
Canal, the possible change in governments, and the ulti- 
mate influence of America over all, constitute a mighty 
theme. Should Archaeologists unearth the ancient his- 
tory of Egypt and assign to her the proud ancestry of 



Asia, Africa, and Europe. 



110 COSMONICS OP THE UNITED STATES. 

our boasted knowledge, showing that she is the antece- 
dent of Greece in learning, thereby sending us to a lower 
latitude for the source of our civilization, the ascent 
through Athens and Rome to Paris and London would 
still be in range, and in keeping with our theory of 
movement towards the Northwest. 

In the line of greatest activity around the world, this 
descent and ascent through Asia is about equal to the 
sum of the two distances through Europe and America ; 
all measurements being counted by meridians between 
average extremes, and hence on straight lines. The 
estimates are found to almost exactly coincide. 

The number of meridians spanned by Asia on the 
40th parallel being one hundred, those in Europe and 
America together are also one hundred but measured in 
higher latitudes — both geographically and intellectually. 
The diametrical line for Europe is on parallel 50, while 
for America it is intermediate, being from 40 to 50 in 
a diagonal — an average of 45. This is significant of the 
fact that properties of both Asia and Europe combine 
in America. 

For developing the best conditions of active life, the 
sun's rays lose in effectiveness as they approach either 
the perpendicular or the horizontal direction to the earth, 
and as they approximate the mean angle between these 
— that of 45 degrees — other things being equal and 
barring interferences — the excellences resulting from 
their action are not only increased, but are of a higher 
order. Hence the torrid and the frigid regions are both 
unfavorable to the highest development of man, and the 



COSMONICS OF THE UNITED STATES. Ill 

civilization of both are inclined to be statical instead of 
changeable and progressive. The predestination of the 
Japhetic Race to perpetual progress is probably due to 
the countries through which they were sent, more than 
to their superiority of ancestral blood. 

In the absence of any historical knowledge concerning 
the origin of Asian races, of the gradations through 
which they rose to the plane of existence they now 
occupy, or to any superior civilization which they may 
have known in the past (for, judging from their antiqui- 
ties, they seem to have retrograded during the latter 
centuries), nothing can be said of the movement of their 
civilization, whether it be a development fixed in all 
of its peculiarities incident to the several climes from 
Tartary to Turkey, or whether it was aggressive by 
conquest and culture. It is not a part of our present 
purpose to speculate upon the past nor to deal even 
in facts with the old countries, except so far as may be 
necessary to aid us in forecasting the New. 

Our consideration of pre-historic races and their insti- 
tutions is limited chiefly to their geographical positions 
and the climatic influences on the human organism ; in 
order that we may, by comparison, see the conditions 
under which Americans must develop. 

Notwithstanding the difference in size between the 
Old World and the New, their geographical proportions 
in measurements, which have reference to the principles 
under consideration, are somewhat remarkable.* While 



* Measurements are here made by counting degrees, which is the 
only method of answering our purpose to be both clear and concise. 



112 COSMONICS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

the mean longitudes of Asia are about equal to those of 
both Europe and America, as already shown — giving 
to Europe and Asia together three times the width of 
America, — the latitudes reached by the mean borders 
of the great active belt are, in the Old World, separated 
by a distance about double that which divides it in the 
New. In the Old World they range between 20° and 
60°, as an average or mean width, and in the New be- 
tween 30° and 50°, or from New Orleans to Winnipeg, 
otherwise from the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of 
Georgia; the great limbs of Mexico and Alaska being 
extensions which offset corresponding abbreviations on 



Nautical miles in explanation of differences on a sphere are not 
easily given. The longest distances by meridians across continents 
are about 65 N. Lat. ; whereas belt estimates for our specific object are 
mostly between 40 and 50. So we make in our belt as follows, viz. : 



Atlantic Ocean about 75 degrees 
Pacific Ocean about 120 " 
America about 50 " 

Asia and Europe, 115 " 



It is clear therefore, that from 

Pekin to London, in a direct 

}■ line, the slant is greater than 

from Philadelphia to Vancou- 

360 j ver's Island. 

The average of inhabitable Asia is about 100 degrees longitude. 

The average of inhabitable America and Europe is about 50 degrees 

longitude each. 

Between parallels of latitude, the average for Europe is about 
between 40 and 70. 

Between parallels of latitude, the average for America is about 
between 30 and 70. 

The parallel of 70 north latitude is about equally tangential to 
both Europe and America. While both are habitable to this line 
the prolific and desirable portions extend only to about 60 north, 
latitude. Siberia in Asia is about 65 north latitude. 



COSMONICS OF THE UNITED STATES. 113 

the opposite or eastern side of the continent, from 
Labrador to Florida. 

This sigmoidal belt or great girdle around the Earth, 
with an axis deviating at every point and a direct line 
for its equator, becomes a subject for interesting study- 
throughout its entire length — especially where it tra- 
verses a continent. It is here considered chiefly with 
reference to its course through Europe and America, — 
particularly the latter. Its flexures are so apportioned 
that its direction through Europe is an index of its pro- 
jection through America, for they are strikingly similar.* 
It is the center line or axis of a comparatively narrow 
belt embracing the most interesting features of civiliza- 
tion and refinement ; " where the human form has been 
developed in all its perfection and the human intellect 
has put forth its most vigorous manifestations ; where 
governments are stable and best administered, where 
human life and property are best protected, and where 
capital is most extensively accumulated and invested; 
where the rewards of industry are the most liberal and 
most certain, and where society may be truly said to 
have attained its highest excellence." 

"The Course of Empire" is along this line of pro- 



* The curved axis through Europe shows a steeper ascent as it 
approaches the western limits. This appropriately indicates intenser 
action there than in the eastern portion. On this principle it might 
be argued that as the average ascent in Europe is more abrupt than 
in America, intenser action is indicated for that continent than for 
this. The argument falls, however, in view of the fact that Nature 
has provided for greater concentration in America, as before Bhown, 
and hence a more forcible and higher order of movement. 



114 COSMONICS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

gress, operative in the old world and speculative in the 
new; but always in a diagonal as the most effective 
forces move. 

Though falling slightly below and rising somewhat 
above the belt embraced by parallels 40 and 50, the 
diagonal bisection of this belt is, by the grand march of 
mind in its unceasing westward course, so made that the 
parallel of 45 degrees becomes really the average direct 
line of most vigorous activity, as seen in its midway 
course through the mental sphere of Europe where this 
intellectual center has moved, though not direct, yet, 
for the most part within the narrow belt above indicated. 

If we accept the Noachian account of the debarkation 
(deb-ark-ation), we may proceed from the western shore 
of the Caspian Sea near Mount Ararat whose base is on 
the 40th parallel, and inclining slightly to the north, we 
move westward to Constantinople, the seat of Empire 
in the East, where Mahometanism with its character- 
istic civilization has long prevailed and ruled its many 
millions. 

Weak at first and consequently slow, the " Course of 
Empire," although moving in its normal direction, had 
not momentum sufficient to overcome the gravity of its 
base-line, and as by growth its weight considerably in- 
creased, it fell to 40° with a force which carried it as far 
below — but still westward — to Athens, the birth-place 
of intellectual power and artistic beauty. The force of 
its lateral impulse is here spent or overcome, and after a 
pause in which it gathers increased energy, it is again 
drawn to its base-line. Now in harmony with its 



COSMONICS OP THE UNITED STATES. 115 

natural or upward course, it continues on its way 
westward, rising with cumulative power too great to 
be effectually checked by the magnetic base which it 
recrosses on its way to Rome. Thence moving onward 
with resistless force, it erects its standard on the most 
western limits of the Old World. From Athens to 
London it makes a waving curve through a series 
of Capitals, each prominent for some peculiarity due 
to the part it has taken in the great drama of human 
advancement.* 

Thus, in its march, it established in succession, — 
Athens, the origin of beauty in art ; Rome, to which is 
ascribed the history of all-conquering force ; Florence, 
to which must be referred the history of modern Europe, 
Paris the seat of refinement, and London the seat of 
modern power and the center of the world's commerce. 
"So, Paris and London became the centers of civiliza- 
tion, in the midst of a group of cities and states, making 
the whole continent of Europe to glow with a hitherto 
unseen effulgence, and lighting up the eastern rim of 
another hemisphere." 

With no obstacle to surmount, and no material upon 
which to work or feed, the genius of Civilization ceases 
to ascend; and while moving still westward across the 



* This waving curve is a general dip or sag, — a gravitation south- 
ward towards its base-line, being thus drawn by tbe great commer- 
cial activity on and along the Mediterranean Sea. The waving or 
irregularity of the curve is caused by the points named, being not in 
a direct line; as, for instance Florence is north of the line from 
Athens to Rome, as also from Rome to Paris. Similar deflections 
occur in America. 



116 COSMONTCS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

sea, falls back to its base-line of 40° in America, at 
Philadelphia where the Treaty of Penn — " mightier in 
arbitration than the sword" — first proved effective to 
open the way for a grand and successful march to a 
grander and more successful goal. 

"At this auspicious place on May 17, 1787, the 
National Convention, with Washington at its head, held 
its first session, wherein the average mental power was, 
perhaps, never exceeded in the history of the world." 
Between that date and the 17th of September following, 
was formed the Constitution of the United States of 
America. 

The place as well as the time was eminently suited 
to the event from which we may date the history of 
constitutional liberty, begun by the signing of that 
immortal instrument, the Declaration of Independence, 
and consummated in the supplemental document which 
made us a Nation. "For the first time in human 
history the great mass of the people stood revealed," 
armed with the weapons of Peace and ready for the 
march of enlightened freedom, to traverse a new con- 
tinent and subdue it from savagism to the dominion of 
intelligent labor. 

" The scattered ranks spread out along the Atlantic 
Coast from Nova Scotia to Florida, illuminated the 
border of a vast continent with the most select specimens 
from peoples of different nationalities who, clustering 
in homogeneous groups, took root and enabled their 
adopted America to take her position face to face with 
Europe ; no longer as a dependent minor, but as a full- 



COSMONICS OF THE UNITED STATES. 117 

aged daughter, independent and equal, with a fought- 
for and acknowledged right." 

But a greater victory was yet to be won — the libera- 
tion of mind from the thraldom of ancient errors ; and 
volunteers from the ranks of reform in the Old World, 
came to join in this work of human amelioration. So 
the center of the civilized world has been removed 
to a remoter point in the West, and "all the mental 
splendor of the East brought over to illuminate the im- 
mense realms then first redeemed from barbarism " and 
dedicated to the elevation of mankind. 

Flanked on either side by a long and luminous array 
of municipal stars, stretching from St. Johns on the 
North to St. Augustine on the South, and with New 
York and Baltimore on the right and left respectively, 
Philadelphia is the central key of our civilization and 
axial base of the line of march to the Mississippi where 
the gigantic movement of intellect is augmenting its 
forces, and every hour deepening the contrast between 
its own generous grandeur and the "petty insipidities 
it leaves behind" — where thought the most free and 
original will henceforth cause the country to individ- 
ualize itself more and more, until a distinguished race 
shall have developed the resources of a continent of 
states, and gathered a galaxy of its brightest luminaries 
in central skies to pour their combined effulgence from 
sea to sea ; where constellations in every horizon, radi- 
ating to a common focus, will intensify the lustre and 
make our nation to glow with a splendor unknown 
in the annals of patriotism and progress. Spreading 



118 COSMONICS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

quickly over our continent, the best ideas, arts and insti- 
tutions of all progressive peoples are becoming rapidly- 
established, to focalize the light of all preceding centuries 
in the great valley and, flooding the nation with a sea 
of glory, illuminate the world. 

The foregoing ideas and inferences touching the points 
of resemblance and difference between the eastern and 
western hemispheres, will be received with varying 
degrees of interest and regarded as of more or less 
importance, according as they are understood and the 
jmysiological effects of differing climatic and other con- 
ditions are comprehended. In whatever light they may 
be considered, they possess the strong element of truth, 
and belong rather to history than to hypothesis ; being 
not the creations of fancy, but logical deductions from 
evident facts. 

The Commercial Axis through America is projected 
on a line to correspond with its course through Europe, 
albeit under influences measurably dissimilar, and at 
times acting in opposite directions. It is on the southern 
border of Eastern Europe and in the central portion of 
Eastern America. The immense commerce of the Great 
Lakes act in the opposite direction from that of the Medi- 
terranean Sea. So, while in Europe it is attracted south- 
ward by the sea, in America it is drawn northward by the 
lakes, thereby overcoming the attraction of the Ohio 
River and other southward influences sufficiently to hold 
it from an abnormal dip in that direction. The magnetic 
power of this influence in longitude 87 causes an upward 
turn until it hugs the southern shore of Lake Michigan. 



COSMONICS OP THE UNITED STATES. 119 

In its descent from the 50th parallel in the British 
Channel to the 40th at Philadelphia, it gravitates a little 
upward as it approaches America, bringing Boston and 
New York within its curved line of progress. From 
Philadelphia it ascends through Harrisburg and Pitts- 
burg, curving upwards to the end of Lake Michigan, 
having passed into latitude 41 near Fort Wayne. 

The commerce of the two upper lakes extending 
through six degrees of latitude, and practically concen- 
trated within one of longitude on Lake Michigan and 
its western shore, is the powerful magnet by which the 
axis is deflected upward into contact with the coming 
Metropolis of America and ultimately of the World. 
It now gravitates a little southward, passing Joliet to 
longitude 90 but not below latitude 41. This takes 
place under the influence of the Mississippi which, mag- 
netic as the lakes, dominates towards the south at all 
points above St. Louis where the equipoise is reached. 
The bend upwards to Chicago from the sag southward, 
forms the waving curve before mentioned. Similar 
waves may occur beyond, but not to overcome or 
materially change its grand ascent as it speeds from 
the 90th Meridian westward and northward, midway 
between Topeka with Kansas City and St. Paul with 
Minneapolis, — counterparts in importance and the next 
luminaries of magnificence beyond St. Louis and Chicago. 
Denver and Winnipeg are offsets still farther on and 
wider apart. Between them runs the Axis on the north 
side of the Black Hills and through a region almost 
starless to the naked eye, but full of interesting search 



120 COSMONICS OF THE UNITED STATES. 






as we sweep the horizon with our horoscope and catch 
glimpses here and there of new luminaries coming into 
view, — as yet but points of light. 

In the distance a Stellar mass appears, somewhat 
nebulous but with clearly defined nuclei which we 
shall study with growing interest as approach dispels 
the mist, and a cluster of cities stand revealed, rivaling 
in magnificence the great marts of Europe and making 
Puget Sound to glow with an effulgence unparalleled 
by any harbor of the broadest ocean on the globe. 

Our arguments concerning Puget Sound and the 
Columbia River, are not for the purpose of magnifying 
the merits of these waters as harbors ; but the inevita- 
ble conclusion to which their superiority leads, is here 
brought forward to show the outcome of our " March 
to the sea," and to aid in proving that its course must 
be, as it has been from Asia to the western coast of 
Europe — in a north-westerly direction. Whatever may 
be offered in hypothesis or ultimately shown by experi- 
ence favoring a more direct route to a more southern 
terminus, will not change the position already taken re- 
garding the Central Region and its commercial capitals. 

What we have already stated about sections, may with 
a measure of propriety be said concerning cities. Situa- 
tion and accessibility, however favorable, are not their 
only pre-requisites. Productive surroundings are also 
important; and as it is not city population alone, but 
also thickly inhabited adjacent districts, which make 
populous and powerful sections, so the line of richest 
development may not lie along the most feasible and 



COSMONICS OF THE UNITED STATES. 121 

direct thoroughfares of transportation between dis- 
tant parts. 

A healthful climate with fertile soil and good facili- 
ties for local traffic, are the primary conditions of 
substantial wealth and political power. The lines of 
greatest intensity will follow such, rather than more 
direct and more feasible routes, if the latter be not sup- 
ported by these collateral circumstances. But when the 
great centers of commerce, desirably located with direct 
routes of transportation between them, exist in immediate 
juxtaposition with the highest advantages of productive 
svil and manufacturing facilities, theke are combined 
the various elements of success and guarantees of perma- 
nent greatness. 

Agriculture, manufacture, and commerce, the prima- 
ries of business and wealth, must conform to natural 
adaptations ; after this they possess the power of adapt- 
ing education and the arts to their own requirements. 
Hence, as we have found in the sites and surroundings 
of Chicago and St. Louis, all the pre-requisites of 
great cities ; so we may find in the richest agricul- 
tural belt from these to the Pacific Ocean, stretching in 
a northwesterly direction through the far-reaching and 
fertile valleys of the Missouri River and its tributaries, 
and continuing with those of the Columbia in the same 
general direction, the zone of greatest activity, prosperity, 
and power. 

If desirable, by means of improved riverbeds and 
canals, to unite the great central and the Pacific waters 
as nearly as possible for purposes of navigation, the 



122 COSMONICS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

Missouri and the Columbia Rivers afford' the most, if 
not the only feasible route for its accomplishment; while 
their valleys lying in the direction of civilization's march 
and forming the belt of highest activity and productive- 
ness, afford reasonable grounds for a conclusion that the 
greatest railroad thoroughfares across the continent will 
be developed in close proximity to these water-courses — 
perhaps between the Union Pacific and the Northern 
Pacific Railroads, — diverging from the former in Cen- 
tral Iowa and joining the latter in Montana. 

From Chicago and St. Louis, lines of traffic will 
converge in southeastern Dakota and, passing near the 
Black Hills, pursue the same general course to the 
Yellowstone north of the National Park, and so on to 
Puget Sound. 

Thus the most direct line through the richest region 
from the central to the Pacific States, will form an im- 
portant link in the grand march of civilization around 
the Planet.* 

The vast area so traversed, is rich in the elements of 
vegetable and mineral wealth, and is well and beauti- 
fully watered by numberless tributaries of the great 
rivers, flowing in opposite directions from a common 
summit where their head-waters interlace, and which is 
comparatively easy of access and passage, because of its 
low elevation at the depressed summits of the Great 



* This is not laid down as a route certain to he followed by one or 
a number of trunk lines of road, but as the axis of a great belt of 
cities, towns and general enterprise. This axis will be followed by 
trunk or belt lines as nearly as practicable. 



COSMONICS OF THE UNITED STATES. 123 

Continental Mountain Range; with a latitude of vigor- 
ous climate and moderate temperature, in a pre-eminent 
degree fulfilling the conditions of a civilization of the 
highest order. We may, therefore, safely venture the 
prediction that it is the highway of human progress, 
development and culture. 

If a basis for belief more definite than a general 
statement be required, it may be furnished in a few 
official facts concerning the largest and central one of 
the three grand divisions on this route beyond the State 
of Iowa, of which Dakota, the first, may be considered 
as a continuation in soil and climate, double in size and 
more delightful in scenery. Washington Territory, the 
third of these divisions and touching the Pacific Ocean, 
is also immense in her dimensions and of acknowledged 
fruitfulness and beauty. Montana between them, is 
the best watered region west of the Mississippi; rich 
in mines of gold, silver, and other metals, besides 
containing, according to the estimate of the Surveyor 
General, 20,000,000 acres of land adapted to the pur- 
poses of farming. 

The climate of the whole route is highly favorable 
for habitation, both as to subsistence and enjoyment. 
Dakota has the average temperature of Iowa, with a 
dryer and more invigorating atmosphere ; Montana that 
of Ohio without its dampness and changeableness, and 
Washington Territory that of Virginia, with more rain 
and cooler summer nights. 

But neither our purpose nor our space will admit of 
details. Reports of explorations and surveys have been 



124 COSMONICS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

printed and copiously circulated, and their repetition 
here would be superfluous and cumbersome, where the 
aim is to be concise. Enough has been said to show 
our conclusions and our reasons therefor. 

Of the commercial belt running north and south, less 
can or need be said by way of argument. The channel 
of the Mississippi decides that matter, and with Lake 
Winnipeg and the two rivers which feed and drain it — 
the Red and the Nelson — plainly indicates the line from 
Hudson Bay to the Gulf of Mexico. At the Bay end, 
other channels may, by improvement and construction, 
be made to connect these two superior seas through 
Superior Lake at its upper end. Some years must 
elapse before speculation and exploration will have 
settled this question. That it will be affirmatively 
decided there is no reasonable doubt. 

In her most generous plans Nature seems always to 
leave some things for Art to accomplish. The Canal 
by Niagara Falls had to be constructed, the mouth of 
the Mississippi to be deepened, and the Isthmus of Suez 
to be channelled. So must a canal connecting- Lake 
Michigan with the Mississippi River, or the two Oceans 
through Central America, and one or more to complete 
intercourse between Hudson Bay and the Rivers or 
the Lakes. [See Chart B, and Chart of the World.] 

In such an event, these two great arms of the ocean, 
Hudson Bay and the Gulf of Mexico, counter-parts in 
extent as well as in respective position, lying as they do 
in the same longitude, would be connected by a water- 
way crossing the broadest isthmus on the globe ; while 



COSMONICS OF THE UNITED STATES. 125 

numerous railways — and perhaps more speedy means of 
transit, — running all abreast, approximately parallel to 
each other and to the 90th meridian, will permanently 
establish between the extremes of continent and climate, 
uninterrupted intercourse through their most natural and 
central channel teeming with trade and studded with 
marts and manufactories, in the midst of cultivated 
fields displaying every variety of production and order 
of industry incident to the varying latitudes which so 
imperceptibly blend heterogeneous characteristics. This 
luminous belt will prove a bond of safety, serving to 
harmonize the widest differences through gradations of 
changing interests so closely interwoven that, throughout 
the entire length, no abrupt transition, flaw, or line of 
demarkation exists, where a separation would not mar a 
figure and destroy an indispensable portion of the fabric. 
Being strongest in the middle, it will successfully with- 
stand the most violent attempts at separation. One 
such, having destroyed its own motive, is not likely 
again to be made. The costly lesson remembered, and 
the increased facilities with demands for intercourse 
between sections varying in climate and differing in 
productions, call for the largest measure of reciproca- 
tion in trade. This will henceforth stimulate a feeling 
of common interest with sentiments in favor of union. 
From the South and from the centre, food and fabrics 
must go to the forests and the mines beyond the fields of 
agriculture, where exist in abundance crude materials 
for exchange. The undeveloped wealth of that vast 
and rigorous clime is a bold challenge to the enterprise 



126 COSMONICS OP THE UNITED STATES. 

of this age, and will not be permitted to pass the climax 
of opportunity unaccepted. 

It seems reasonably certain that this continent is to 
be spanned from ocean to ocean and from bay to gulf, 
by belts of unusual activity in the various operations of 
civilized life. 

A marvellous coincidence exciting our admiration, is 
the probability which existing facts present, that these 
two grand avenues of intercourse intersect each other at 
or near the ultimate center of population. 

The two arms of the Cross extend respectively to 
Hudson Bay and the Mexican Gulf, whose expanding 
waters with their digital accessories grasp the commerce 
of extreme latitudes for reciprocal advantages and 
general benefits, — the arms of ocean commerce becoming 
the hands of internal trade. Equally distant from the 
common center, these twin seas appear to have been 
auspiciously placed in the same longitude, in order that 
by the shortest distance they may be brought into that 
direct, union for which they were intended. [Chart B.^ 

By trausversing the cross, changing the arms into the 
upright, with center unmoved, we may form an emblem 
of surpassing beauty and significance. By abbreviating 
the upper limb, and crowning it with a crescent poised 
after Nature's pattern, the direction and extent of our 
growth are indicated. With head amidst the head- 
waters of our navigable system, its foot planted on the 
thirtieth parallel in the foot waters of the Mississippi, 
it stands, the ideal of our inheritance and symbol of our 
sway. Twining up its magnificent shaft, the majestic 



COSMONICS OF THE UNITED STATES. 127 

river seems, — not transversed, but transformed, — a river 
into a vine. Its Delta represents the roots drawing 
nourishment from the exhaustless ocean, the world's 
field of commerce. The trunk ascends along the nine- 
tieth meridian, the axis of both cross and vine. The 
smaller streams are branches with lakelets for leaves. 
Hamlets, towns and cities are its blossoms and fruits in 
all stages of development. These have been nourished 
by its active circulation until their number and size 
called for artificial support. Such are the props furnished 
by railroads. Extend the arms to either ocean, and the 
left becomes recipient from all the East of Ancient Art 
or modern lore. The giving right, longer and lifted, 
points our course and signifies our policy — resistless 
though pacific. In keeping with natural proportions 
and relations, therefore, as given on preceding pages, is 
our imagery of the commercial cross. 

Comprehensively, then, we note : 

1 Asia the largest continent; 2 Pacific the greatest 
ocean ; 3 Western coast, the longest shore and side 
of America; 4 Pacific Slope longer and broader than 
Atlantic Slope ; 5 Western mountains more numerous, 
high, and extensive than the Alleghenies; 6 Columbia 
and Colorado Rivers greater than any on Atlantic Slope; 
7 Puget Sound the largest harbor; 8 Northern portion 
of Continent the broadest portion ; 9 Lakes larger to- 
wards the West and North ; most northern and western — 
Superior; 10 Northwestern River (Missouri) the longest 
branch; 11 Northwestern region more extensive than 
Southwestern; 12 Mild climate extensive towards the 
Northwest; 13 Connecting channel through Lake Win- 



128 COSMONICS OF THE TJNITED STATES. 

nipeg, conforming to the general plan, bends to the 
Northwest; 14 Corresponding to the above, the Missis- 
sippi Valley, — the Great Basin, — the Central Section, 
is largest in the Western and Northern portion, has the 
greatest area towards the Northwest — is most extensive 
west and northwest of the commercial and political 
centers. All this may seem eccentric. So it is, but it is as 
true as a circle. What more in keeping then, than that: 
15 The Great American Cross raise its long, strong, 
right arm significantly toward the Great Northwest, as 
the Crescent looks and the Vine extends. 

Thus let it remain : — The Cross, the Crescent, and the 
Vine, — signifying Virtue, Growth, and Plenty — as a 
perpetual symbol of our Civilization. 

Under opposite conditions and on different plans are 
laid out these intersecting highways, — the Cross Belts of 
the Continent. 

The Meridian Line, like the magnetic needle, points 
in the direction of the Poles. The other, like the elec- 
tric circuit, is devious in its course, and uncertain until 
its affinities are developed and the circuit completed. 
As it proceeds westward across America, it rises through 
a series of latitudes corresponding to its course through 
Europe, crossing also an equal number of meridians 
in its passage, and reaching the Pacific at an elevation 
suitably adapted by adequate arrangement for a vic- 
torious descent upon the ancient East to redeem and 
civilize the world. 

" Were man to live coeval with the sun, 
The patriarch student would be learning still, 
And, dying, leave his lesson half unlearned." 



